


In My Worst Moments

by Atacama



Series: In My Worst Moments [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Explicit Sexual Content, Family Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Bondage, M/M, Military, Military Inaccuracies, Relationship Discussions, Soul Bond, Superpower Sex, Superpowers, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:34:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26432713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atacama/pseuds/Atacama
Summary: What if Alex couldn’t resist seeing Michael one last time before his first deployment. He doesn’t want to die in a desert on the other side of the world without seeing his face, feeling his touch, without having Michael one last time.But it seems they are connected so intrinsically that Alex sees Michael everywhere. Even when he’s on the other side of the world, fighting in a war he doesn’t believe in, with soldiers he can’t trust, for a country that doesn’t love him for who he is.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: In My Worst Moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921366
Comments: 88
Kudos: 135





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: Because there are many…. excuse the waffling 
> 
> It has been over 12 years since I’ve dabbled in fandom. Seriously, it has been a very long time since I’ve written anything at all. 
> 
> It’s been a while since I tagged anything other than slash, NC-17 & NSFW. So, if I missed out tags, let me know. If you need additional info, let me know. 
> 
> This isn’t an anti Max or Isobel story… but I seem to enjoy adding more resentment to my relationships when I’m writing (makes for more interesting dialogue). I hope that I can say Alex holds people accountable in ways Michael wouldn’t. I think that every aspect to this dynamic stems from issues I have perceived in canon so I hope it’s not OC. 
> 
> I know nothing about war, I know nothing about the military, I know nothing about Aliens or Soulmates come to think about it... I have googled and researched but I am not infallible. Alex’s Manes has a page long military career analysis timeline thing… that is most likely incorrect (because Alex’s canon career is like… what?)
> 
> I’m not from the United States so I apologise for any weird otherness.
> 
> This is mostly finished, I will likely post once or twice weekly. I had fun (amidst all the anxiety and neurosis) so I hope you do too.

He’s on the edge of drifting off on his bunk when it happens. On top of the sheets, the heat of the day slowly evaporating into the cold desert night. The sun has already set and he’s hovering in that space between knowing he should get changed into something comfortable so he can fall asleep properly yet too comfortable to get up and actually do it.

Alex had been promoted to Senior Airman and imbedded in this unit as their communication and radio operator just before coming to Iraq. They’ve been here about 6 weeks and they’ve gotten used to each other. They’re friendly and he can hear some of the guys ribbing each other, but he’s not conscious enough to make out the exact words. The other soldiers in the bunk room are all at different stages of disengaging from their days. Most of them are in their bunks reading, napping or distracting themselves. Airmen First Class Ethan Sanchezand Nathan Edwards and their Staff Sargent Shaun Cox are playing cards at the end of their beds.

So, the sudden silence is strange enough that Alex opens his eyes. It’s also strange to blink at the bright midmorning sun of a different desert more than seven thousand miles away. An Ocean, a couple of seas and continents away. His vision is blurry, a heated haze of sepia tones that fade the edges of the objects around him.

The sagebrush and grasses sway violently in a windstorm that contradict the peaceful blue cloudless skies above, and though he can’t feel it, he is certain sand and rocks are being picked up by the energy that is circling. He feels like there’s a tornado, slowly collecting itself and forming itself around him. The turquoise mines are in the background, actually this is where… he slowly turns around.

Michael’s truck is parked where it’s usually parked. A far ways off the closest dirt road that can carry a solid truck out into the desert. He’s sitting on the tail gate, legs crossed, hunched over with his elbows on his knees. Like Alex has seen him do countless times. But he is stillness surrounded by the winds and furry that whip the air. He is unmoving. His flannel shirt, buttons mostly undone or probably missing, isn’t flapping in the wind, a cowboy hat stays on his head.

Alex looks around, curious. Looks down and sees the same boots that hung off the edge of his bunk so they wouldn’t get his sheets dusty, while he dozed, the same cameo on his legs. Suddenly, as if someone had been playing with the tuning dial on an old radio, sensation and sound come in at full force. The particles picked up by the wind prickle the skin on his face and hands and the rush of furious gusts whistle in his ears, getting angrier and more violent. He squints and makes the decision to head towards Michael. He lifts his hand up to shade the side of his face as the wind continues and the small stones near his feet begin to vibrate and hop waiting for the opportunity to jump into the currents that are sweeping the wild grasses flat and trying to uproot dead brush from the dry ground.

Michael is still. He is the heart of the tornado. As the winds funnel and concentrate around him a furious barrier that separates them for a moment but part biblically as Alex decides to force himself through, to reach him. It’s not difficult, there is no energy pushing back or restricting him. He nears, and Michael still does not move but the earth beneath Alex’s feet begins to vibrate and shake with such strength that Alex stumbles the last few steps. As he reaches out to touch the top of a black cowboy hat, he hasn’t seen before, Michael looks up wide eyed and shocked.

Their eyes meet and Alex feels the gravity and force, the collective tides of all the oceans and seas, the pull between the earth and the moon thrust him back, away.

He is thrown into his bunk and sits up, breath already building up in his lungs choking him. He’s gasping and holding it down as his lungs compress and shrivel and his eyes water. The air is stuck and confused in his body as he tries to stand up and calmly leave the bunkroom room without his squad noticing his distress.

He gets behind the barracks collapses forward on to his knees and vomits his dinner. His ears are ringing, he’s nauseous and he is in the middle of an episode of such acute vertigo he can barely lean against the wall behind him and burry his face in his knees while he waits for the world to stop spinning.

He’s not sure how long it lasts. But it does stop, eventually. He’s exhausted, utterly wiped out. He’s sprawled against the wall of the barracks, dazed. If anyone were to stumble upon him, they’d probably think he’d over done it at the bar. But he gathers himself, stands and manages to walk back, hand guiding him as he barely supports his weight leaning heavily on the wall of the building.

He goes back inside and his departure has obviously not gone unnoticed.

“Dude, what the fuck? Where did you run out to? You look like shit.” Sanchez throws out into the room. Not loudly, so as not to disturb the slumbering airmen, but it’s quiet and he can be heard all over the room. All three card players are looking up at him, concerned.

“Dude, you’re supposed to wait until after we fight in a war for the PTSD and flashbacks to start melting your brain.” Edwards follows when Alex ignores them.

The members of his unit that are still awake, commiserate jokingly for a moment about the weird things that freak ‘em out; spiders, big waves in the ocean after a near drowning, the sound of a car breaking after a childhood accident… their Staff Sargent Cox tells them the story of his close encounter with a desert scorpion during his first tour.

Alex slowly gets changed and lets the background noise lull him to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He can’t say that he doesn’t think of the strange flash of Michael. It definitely places Michael at the forefront of his thoughts during training exercises or while his unit is on watch or on patrol, while he’s working on coding or decryptions in the Comms Tent. He wonders, what would make Michael so upset as to wander into the desert to be alone with his thoughts. It makes him admit how shallow their relationship had been.

Maybe not shallow… just young. They’d spoken about dreams and their futures in the same idealistic way children speak about being firemen or marine biologists. Despite all the terrible things that had happened to them both growing up, they still had the capacity to believe that they would graduate, slates would be cleaned and they would become their best imagined adult selves. That outside forces wouldn’t tear their dreams and illusions to pieces. That the world, society, Roswell wouldn’t ensure that they became exactly what their high school guidance counselors had imagined of them. A delinquent, drop out, bar prop or a military man who would die in a foreign desert. They’d been railroaded into failing and become their own self-fulfilling prophecies.

Oh sure, a military man could go far. He was planning to milk the Air Force for every last drop of education he could get. Alex had already agreed to extend his 6-month deployment for another 6 but instead of Iraq he would be in Ramstein Air Force Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany getting further special training in cryptography, cyber-cracking, and telecommunications.

His father had forced him in to this world, he sure as hell was going to beat it down and come out on top. His father, even his brothers had never made the leap to commissioned officer but Alex had plans.

Well, all this to say. It’s not so strange that in the middle of his shift, in the communications tent, while he’s zoning out waiting for a decrypt to hand over to the Analyst supervising him, he suddenly finds himself standing over Michael’s sleeping body as he tosses and moans in his bed in the airstream. That he imagines himself sitting beside him on the thin mattress and brushing his hands over Michael’s curls. Then shifting his own body down, while he’s fully decked out in his desert camo, to embrace his restless body. It’s a little strange as far as PG day dreams go.

It’s not really like touching, there is no mass, no substance to Michael’s form. Just the idea of Michael’s body that Alex’s brain can’t quite process because if he sees it, he should feel it. Those are the synapses that flare in Alex’s head as he lies down behind Michael, along his back, as his hands ghost over Michael’s arms and around his hips. As he tries to sooth the tension out until Michael stops crying out, until he calms down, until his breathing slows and he’s sleeping again.

Alex blinks to awareness and shakes the image out of his head. Looks around himself carefully, at the identical desks and desk chairs, at bright computer screens and servers and the identical cameo they’re all wearing. At the hum and whining of the air-conditioners that keep them and their machines cool in the desert. No one’s seemed to notice his lapse in attention.

No one has noticed that it smells like rain.

It happens again, but this time he’s rattling in the Humvee. Pressed between the window and Airman Sanchezon his other side. His gun is between his legs, they’re on their way to a secondary location where another unit has discovered an abandoned base with left over computer equipment that they need to retrieve.

Once again Michael seems to be in that place just before waking from a bad dream. The pattern on his sheets has changed and Alex wonders at how detail oriented his brain is. It’s a couple weeks further into Summer and Michael isn’t wearing a shirt while he sleeps.

Alex feels his breath hitch and chest tighten painfully with desire. He hasn’t allowed himself the opportunity to look at a man since he left on this deployment. Michael is gold with the suns blessing. He must be working outside because there are faint lines that delineate where his t-shirt should protect him from the sun. But they’re fading as if for a few days that t-shirt has been torn off and thrown aside in the heat.

Alex wants to kiss and bite and lick up his spine and gently wake and distract him from whatever is disturbing his sleep. But instead he goes to repeat his actions from last time. Sits on the thin mattress to lay along Michael’s back. But this time he’s interrupted by the body of his gun coming between them. He’s shocked still for a moment, wondering why on earth he’d ever imagine laying down at Michael’s side with a loaded weapon. An instrument of violence.

He places it down and moves to lie down behind Michael. Rests his nose against the back of his neck and breaths Michael in. Runs his fingertips along the skin before him, imagines the heat radiating, the heart beating. He stays, once again until Michael’s breathing calms until his sleep is more peaceful. When he comes back to himself, he is surprised to still be holding his gun.

What’s odder, is that suddenly he starts to imagine Michael with him. He can’t really rationalise that for himself, in any way, not that he’s tried. He can’t understand what part of his psyche thinks it comforts him to imagen Michael on this military base, outside Baghdad in the middle of a war zone with him, when he knows _that_ is his idea of a horrific nightmare.

After being pulled aside from his duties by a visiting Major Roy Kirch, who had shouted his name as Alex was on his way to the communications tent. Senior Airman Alex Manes spends a full twelve minutes listening as Major Kirch enthused over what great friends he is with Senior Master Sergeant Jesse Manes, what a loyal soldier, great leader, excellent father, how he’s met another one of his brothers while he had been stationed in Kuwait, what a great family man.

How he had bred good strong American men to be ripped apart by war in a foreign country and massacred by the quest for power or turned in to abusive effigies of their father…

Alex’s fists have been tightening at his side as his heart beats louder to drown out the need he has to tell this man to shut up or to simply turn his back and walk away. But he stays, at attention, as Major Kirch commiserates over his fond memories and Alex lets his focus drift and his words slip into meaningless drivel. And Michael appears over the man’s shoulder and slightly to the left. They make eye contact for a moment and then Michael turns around on one of his heels, a full 360 degrees to take in the surroundings before he ends up, as before, returning Alex’s stare. He’s frowning.

Alex doesn’t know if it’s his stupid dick and feelings or if it simply the first time in months he’s seen a man wearing something that isn’t cameo, but no legs have ever looked so good in jeans. He’s wearing a belt buckle that begs you to imagine what unbuckling it would lead to and…

Alex’s attention returns to centre where Major Kirch has been interrupted by an aide who has come to fetch him, he’s late to join the other officers for a debrief. Alex has never been so relieved to see the back of a person who used words that so ignorantly fucked him up. When he moves his head to look back at Michael, though, he’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next time it happens. Alex is very calmly not participating in the conversation that is going on around him in the mess hall.

Some of them had been watching the news, casually, barely hearing anything over the rowdy voices of 100 soldiers digging into the evening’s rations. But the news ticker, scrolled by on the bottom of the screen with enough information to give them an idea of what was being spoken about by the news anchor. Unfortunately, the topic being discussed by the anchors was DADT. Obama was working towards having it repealed and it was currently up for debate in Congress. Unfortunately, the topic of conversation, now, at his table was also DADT.

Half way across the world and 7,399 miles between them. Alex still can’t decide if the mere mention of homosexuality freaks him out because he is deployed in the middle of Iraq, on a base surrounded by 1,500 military personnel who might be disgusted by his existence. Or if this feeling that bubbles up in his chest and make his mouth water with nausea is still due to the trauma of having Jesse Manes as a father.

It’s still a defensive move that during the past two and a half years whenever anything even slightly gay becomes a topic of conversation amongst his peers, Alex retreats into silence. It’s lucky that he is in an environment where silence is taken as another form of agreement. But Alex has perfected a neutral expression that buries the anxiety he might feel under his skin.

But utterly and completely the last person he would ever want to see when this topic is ever mentioned in his vicinity. Counterproductive to the most extreme extent of his reasoning… Michael appears, his presence ratchets up his fear. He breaks out into a cold sweat and his hands shake as he brings them together to squeeze them between his thighs, under the table, where no one can see them.

Once again, the expression on Michael’s face is one of shock and confusion. He spins around to try and identify his surroundings and ends up staring at Alex, frowning. When he starts weaving his way between the men, tables and chairs towards him, Alex can’t help but stand and grab his tray, unfinished, and walk off to hand it over to be cleared away. He rushes out of the mess, oblivious to the shouts that ask him if anything’s wrong, oblivious to everything.

He heads next door towards one of the base Gyms, avoids the entrance and enters the no man’s land between buildings to be alone. His heart is pounding, he’s on the edge of a panic attack. But he hasn’t realised...

He’s not alone.

Michael has followed him. He feels a sensation on his arm and Alex swings round, defensive. To be confronted with Michael. In oil smudged jeans and a dirty working t-shirt. Looking just as freaked out as he is. Alex pulls away, back hitting the wall behind him. He just slides down it, until his ass hits the ground underneath him and he stares up at the length of Michael’s body, until Michael decides to crouch down besides him.

They both just examine each other. While slowly, Alex’s breathing calms down and his heart stops pounding and his eardrums stop ringing. Just when Alex thinks he’s calmed down enough to open his mouth and see if he can use his words. Michael is gone.

He stays exactly where he is, unmoving, his brain frozen and unable to string together any thoughts. He hugs his knees to his chest and eventually wipes his hand over his wet cheeks and notices the sun has gone down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two days later, he’s in the comms tent again, 10am in Baghdad, sun is bright and hot, shining through the windows and the open doorway behind him. There’s 9 hours difference with New Mexico, it must be 1am in Roswell and it’s dark and Alex can barely see.

It takes him a while to blink daylight out of his eyes and adjust to the barely lit corners of the parking lot, at the Pony. There are the sounds of bodies jostling and when he finally adjusts, it’s just in time to see Michael dodge the fist flying towards his face. Alex can’t help but rush forward to put himself between Michael and the man in front of him. His back towards Michael and hands up to placate… Wyatt Fucking Long…? 

But instead of ending the fight, all he does, is distract Michael, who is confronted with his presence and this time the fist that flies towards him, through Alex, hits Michael square in the face.

He must lose conscience because Alex is back and staring at his computer screen, head throbbing painfully. He rolls his chair back away from his computer and touches his face.

His neighbour looks away from his own screen towards him, “you okay?”

“Yeah, sudden headache. Feels like I’ve been punched in the face.”

The Technical Sergeant, Alex forgets his name but knows his rank, reaches between them to grab a bottle of water, twists the top and hands it over to Alex. “It happens, takes a bit of time to get used to moving from the heat outside to the cool air conditioning inside. A bit of a shock for our bodies. You need a break?”

Alex sips and winces, “No I’ll power through and take a Tylenol during my lunch break.” He doubts that’s the reason. He’s been here for almost 3 months and he’s from New Mexico. Airconditioning probably has a religion dedicated to it back at home.

After his long work day is over. Alex is in the barracks, standing as close to the sink as he possibly can, the cold metal of the counter pressing a line across his abdomen as he leans forward to examine himself in the mirror.

He’s so focussed he doesn’t notice he’s not alone anymore until a voice says, “Dude, a little vain much?”

Alex turns around to face Ethan Sanchez.

“Does it look like I’ve been punched in the face?”

Ethan looks surprised, “you got punched? Who the fuck hit you? On base?”

“Well, no. It’s weird. It doesn’t matter.” Alex heads towards his bunk but Ethan follows him.

“Tell me! Tell me! I want to know. Weirdness is entertainment and in this sand cloud anything can be entertaining.”

Alex turns back and studies him for a moment to evaluate his sincerity.

“I… I had a dream and it was so fucking vivid that I feel like my brain got so confused that it translated the dream into reality and it’s making my body think I got punched in the face.”

Ethan’s eyes widen and he comes closer grabs Alex’s face and turns it side to side studying the skin for a second. Then he grins and pats Alex on the cheek. “You look fine darling. Pretty as a picture.”

Alex rolls his eyes and turns back to his bunk. Ethan sits on the bed besides his.

“Why’d you get hit?”

“What?”

“In your dream? Why’d they hit you? It must have been for a reason. Didja’ deserve it?”

“Oh. Um… some racist assholes from high school.” Alex shrugs. It’s not a lie. Wyatt Long was a racist asshole in high school. Also, a homophobic dick, but Alex is not gonna mention that.

“Racist asshole? Were they harassing someone?”

“No, he was just being a dick to me as usual. He was some redneck kid who didn’t know never to throw the first punch. Everything after the first punch is self-defence. I loved that rule in high school.”

“Dude, I hate to break it to you, but you’re white.” Sanchez, is very obviously of non-European descent. Alex hasn’t asked from where, but the way he goes on nostalgically about tostones, mofongo and arroz con gandules, Alex would guess mostly Puerto Rican.

“I’m white passing, but I’m not white. My mother was Navajo.”

“Oh! I didn’t know that. Huh, must be weird.”

Alex bobs his head sideways not agree or disagreeing with anything.

Sanchez keeps speaking. “It’s weird for my sister. She’s so white, blond, skinny no one believes she’s Latina. Always has to prove herself, and half the time people don’t believe her. It drives her nuts. But it’s probably why she got in to college with aid though. Native Spanish speaking white girl from Puerto Rico… a shoe in, trustworthy, probably won’t get pregnant.” Ethan say sarcastically.

“Well, going to college was never an option for me. I’m from a military family. I would have been disinherited,” Alex fakes a laugh and jokes back.

They keep each other company that evening talking about cultural identity and foods they miss from home and it distracts Alex from his face.

But the next day, for the first time since he arrived in Iraq, Alex reserves a time slot on the personal computers. He opens his email and types in Michael’s high school address, they never clean out those servers, Alex still has access to his.

He types out; How’s the face? What did you do to piss off Wyatt Long?

And then sits back for his entire 20-minute slot, staring at the blinking cursor with his arm extended, resting on the mouse, unmoving. In the end he saves the email to his drafts and doesn’t send it.

This is fucking ridiculous.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: Only these first 2 chapters, take place in a war zone. Maybe I should have warned for this earlier.
> 
> I want to warn for the soldier on soldier violence at the beginning of the chapter and a death. No civilians will be involved. Alex is a soldier in a war and war is one of the many things that our civilised, modern society should find reprehensible. 
> 
> This is fiction and I wish to treat war and life and loss of life as respectfully as I can. When I first started thinking of this story, it was one of the main reasons why I was so hesitant to write it. Because my ignorance of war and violence makes it easy for me to fuck it up. 
> 
> The only reason this is happening in Iraq is because it’s canon. To skip the scene:  
> Violence Ends: After this Alex is too busy to pay attention and once he notices that the adrenalin has died down, it seems that Michael, has simply disappeared.

It becomes less ridiculous and fucking terrifying.

As most soldiers will tell you, being deployed is a lot of training maneuverers, interspersed by waiting around for orders, routine patrols and occasionally some action. Alex has been on base for three months when his unit is sent to examine a lead into a suspected satellite hook-up.

They are in XXXXXXXXXXXX a small to medium sized town, in an area that looks bombed out and deserted. The buildings are two, maximum three stories high at most, but packed together and the road that separates them, can’t fit a vehicle, because they were built before vehicles were invented.

It’s unsurprising that something goes wrong. It feels like a good place for an ambush, the unit is spread out, the nature of the city terrain meaning that the soldiers in the lead can’t see what’s happening to the soldiers in the rear. They hear the shot, but Alex sees when Gavin Anderson, one of the younger soldiers in their unit, goes flying backwards, just ahead of him.

In the milliseconds it takes for the brain to evaluate what’s happening, everyone automatically ducks for cover, guns up, searching for the shooter that must be watching them from one of the windows above.

Anderson, has been shot twice, shoulder and thigh. He’s about 6 meters away. Alex, evaluates his position comparatively to those of the other members of his unit. He doesn’t know he’s even made the decision until the voice comes from behind him.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” He freezes, rather than swing round wildly to see who’s behind him. But he knows. He knows it’s Michael.

“It’s my job.” He states very simply and meets the eyes of the soldiers he can see, communicating with hand signals. He’s closest, he’ll grab Anderson and pull him back to safety with him.

Whoever is shooting is not wasting bullets and it’s hard to pin point where they are coming from. He’s patient, more sniper than gunman, trying to slow them away from the location rather than massacre them with hails of bullets.

He’ll need the other soldiers to come out of position shooting, distracting, so he can run out and grab Anderson.

“Alex, you make me watch you die and I’ll kill you. This is not funny anymore.” Michael sounds agitated and panicked.

“I don’t know who invited you to this show. But wish me luck.”

Alex breaks cover and it seems that is the signal for the shooting to begin. It’s as if the lone gunman has been joined by a battalion. Alex has no idea where the bullets are coming from or who they are shooting at. But he trusts the soldiers in his unit to pull the fire away from him.

But just as he grabs Anderson, for a moment it seems like everything goes silent. And it feels like he hears the sound of firing that is somehow separate from the sounds of raining bullets all around him. He doesn’t see the bullets coming towards him. But in fractions of seconds, he thinks he sees bullets stop… and fall to the ground around him.

He grabs Anderson and pulls him back the 6 meters past the open doorway where he had been sheltering, further into the abandoned house.

Anderson is hyperventilating but his bleeding is steady not gushing. So, it doesn’t seem like the bullet in his thigh, caught the femoral.

“Stay out of the way.” Alex throws out while putting pressure on the wounds. His eyes dart from the open doorway to the stairs at the back of the house. There are men shooting at them from windows on the higher floors of these buildings. There’s nothing to say one isn’t in this house, in the rooms above them now

Alex trusts the soldiers in his unit to sort out everything going on outside. But since Anderson is in his hands, Anderson is his responsibility. Keeping them both alive is Alex’s responsibility.

“Jesus H. Christ, Fuck. I got shot. I got shot.” Anderson is staring wide eyed at Alex, in shock.

“Yeah, you did,” Alex sooths, “But you’ll be fine.” He trades inane chatter trying to keep Anderson focused on him and Alex’s focus, off Michael. He grabs Anderson’s IFAK and takes out the tourniquet and trauma bandages.

Alex ties the tourniquet around Anderson’s upper thigh and is about to tackle the shoulder, when Michael breathes out, “someone’s coming,” in barely a whisper as if anyone could hear him. His voice immediately followed by the sound of the clattering of feet.

Alex’s assault weapon is in his hand, pointing up the stairs. “We are soldiers with the United States Air Force put your weapons down.” He shouts, then repeats the last words in Arabic.

The moment he sees a torso, above the legs crashing down the stairs, he knows that he will have to shoot. But he shouts. _“put your weapons down”_ once more in Arabic and waits to see a gun, rising to point at him before pressing the trigger.

It’s the first person he’s ever killed.

The body falls down the stairs but the clatter of feet continues as more people rush down towards them. Alex barely has the time to aim his gun, before the two men are thrown, tossed, flung into the opposite wall at the base of the stairs.

Silence follows. Silence in the inside of Alex’s brain, silence from the lack of clamouring footsteps on stairwells and a growing silence coming from outside.

“Did those assholes, like actually fall down the stairs?” Anderson snickers, gasping with pain.

Alex blinks away from the bodies and his eyes meet Michael’s. He is standing at the edge of the room, as far back as the wall will let him. If he could, Alex thinks Michael would go through it to get away from where he is. His nose is bleeding and he looks blank.

Alex’s attention flickers back to the men at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn’t know how to understand and quantify how hard they hit the wall.

Without letting his aim drift, Alex reaches and drops the trauma bandages onto Andersons torso, “apply those” and then thrusts his secondary weapon into Anderson’s hand, “point that at the door.”

He gets up, weapon aimed at the three bodies and makes his way swiftly towards them, at the base of the stairway.

The man he shot, looks dead. He focuses immediately on the other two. One looks like he is severely injured. He focuses on the third and presses his fingers under his jaw to check. His pulse is beating.

He pulls him out from between the other two, separates him from his weapon and secures him with the military flex cuffs he carries. Then he presses his fingers under the jaw of the second, also still breathing, but struggling. He repeats the process, just in case. Last thing he needs is to get shot in the back. The man he shot is dead. He still presses his fingers under his jaw and removes his weapon. But he’s dead.

“Manes? Are you clear?” A voice shouts from beyond the doorway.

“Yes, clear.”

Sanchez comes through, weapon up and clears the room. Anderson is still pointing his weapon at the door, bewildered, shocky and short of breath. Sanchez, coaxes it out of his grip. “At ease soldier, Manes has everything under control.”

Other soldiers follow Sanchez in. The medic goes to kneel at Anderson’s side.

Sanchez walks up to him. “Manes, you got three of them on your own. Skillzzz” He boasts.

Alex feels the bubble of nausea and shame in his gut. His gaze flickers to the side, where Michael is still standing, unmoving, one arm up, braced as if to protect himself from any of the soldiers bumping into him.

Alex forces himself to look away and focus. “Uh… two…” he swallows the saliva in his mouth, “two actually fell down the stairs.”

A sudden motion out of the corner of his eye makes him look back at Michael who’s staring at him now, horrified and Alex hurries to add, “they need medical attention.”

After this Alex is too busy to pay attention and once he notices that the adrenalin has died down, it seems that Michael, has simply disappeared.

Later, it feels like days, yet merely hours have passed in the high functioning daze of activity of which Alex has no distinct memory. On the journey back to base Alex’s brain is buzzing with the effort of calm, rational, analysis of what the fuck is happening.

He dismisses any attempt at understanding the complex reality of ‘sometimes I’m with Michael in Roswell and sometimes he’s here in Iraq with me.’ There’s just… no explanation… no beginning to unravel the illusion, the sheer fantasy of it, let alone understand it. Alex forces himself to compartmentalise and stick to the small things that he can attempt to make sense of.

It’s Michael and it’s Alex. They can speak to each other, which is new, they hadn’t tried it before. It’s… somehow this is real. Something… a probably imaginary Michael did in what Alex was 90% certain was a delusional hallucination… affected the very real, in reality situation in which Alex actually interacted with in real life.

It seemed to happen when one of them was upset. But if Alex were Michael, a civilian, not a soldier who had been trained for this situation, Alex would assume Michael was freaking out at this point. The only reason Alex is not freaking out, is because he’s focusing on this instead of ‘I killed a man’.

So where was Michael? Why wasn’t Alex with Michael?

Showers on base are more private than you see in the movies. Alex suspected that showers were a good, private place to let soldiers have break downs without other soldiers noticing. That is definitely how Alex is making use of the space. He doesn’t have all the time in the world, only 20 minutes if another soldier knocks on the door. But he turns the shower on, gets naked, steps in and collapses before the water even has time to get warm. Knees pressed up to his chest, arms crossed and face buried in their cradle. He doesn’t know if he’s crying, the shower running away with any tears that might be falling.

He knows the moment Michael appears and he’s reaching for him immediately, for the first time since this all began. 

He can’t really touch him though. His hands don’t go through him but he can’t really affect him either. Can’t grab Michael to pull him down into the shower with him. Can’t clutch at him. Can’t hold him.

It forces Alex’s attention up past the mere presence of his body to his face. Michael looks checked out. It’s been hours but Michael seems to have been dissociating all this time.

“Hey, hey! Michael, look at me.” His name provokes a reaction.

Michael glances down at him and looks surprised to see him scanning around them to place himself. He slides down and sits beside Alex. Michael fully dressed and dry under the running water of the shower, Alex naked and soaking wet as the water washes away his tears. His body still trembling, his heartbeat still thundering.

They don’t speak, but after a moment Michael reaches over and traces the shape of Alex’s hand, where it sits around his knees. Alex feels the pressure, the itch of something as if the small hairs on the back of his hands are being touched but not the skin. Alex closes his eyes and he can feel as Michael keeps moving up over his wrists, arms, elbows, shoulders.

He opens his eyes and turns his head to look at Michael’s face. He studies the curve of his brow, the arch of his nose, the sharp edge of his stubbled jaw, his eyelashes and the line where his skin meets his lips.

“We’re okay!” Alex finally speaks over the rush of falling water. “This is okay.” He doesn’t know what it is. But in this moment, he doesn’t want to question it.

They stay, unmoving, as Alex finds peace in Michael’s presence. His heartbeat stops thundering in his ears and slows down back to normal. Between one breath and the next. He’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the weeks that follow Alex and Michael see each other more often.

Alex has always felt he was very good at reigning back his emotions. He had to be, growing up with a father who liked to press until it hurt and then back hand him for being weak. He was good at hiding his reactions, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, pain. He’d passed the SERE’s pre-screening without any issues, while he’d been going through basic in Lackland AFB. The pre-screening existed to save the Air Force - and airmen - needless pain and suffering. Of the 50% of cadets who passed the pre-selection process only 10% of those would reach the end of the program. He had been offered a place in the SERE Specialist Selection Course, but had turned it down because he’d never been interested in being that kind of soldier. He had chosen a different path, by going in to intelligence and deciding to dedicate all his energy to Cyberspace Defence Operations.

Now he’s beginning to feel liberated. Allowed to feel distress or anxiety or hurt. He could go so far as to say he embraces it.

Alex has never really had nightmares. The violence in his life started out so early that he normalised it and he sleeps the night through… although the slightest noise used to wake him. Barracks, trained him out of that. But he sits with Michael while he tosses and turns a couple of nights every couple of weeks. Talking him down, quietly through the restless sleep, Michael’s eyes barely opening to look at him before he succumbs to sleep.

He sees Michael for a few minutes when he is in the Gym with his unit, Sanchez and Edwards are spotting him while they jokingly over-load the bench press adding weights to the barbell increasing from his usual 215 pounds to see how much he can take. His heart is pounding from the extra weight, and his entire body is tense with adrenaline.

He sees Michael, leaning over an engine in the middle of… Alex glances around, Sanders Junkyard and Auto Shop. He doesn’t seem to be fixing the engine, but he’s mumbling and swearing and suddenly says, “gotchya”.

Alex doesn’t understand what’s happening until he starts to hear a rattling sound. “Fuck me! Is that?” He moves towards Michael just as a snake twists out from between the engine parts and starts to slide out over the edge of the truck, it’s rattling tail trailing behind it. It slithers right down the side of the truck and across the junkyard towards the open desert. Alex and Michael stand side by side, watching as it leaves them behind, until Alex blinks staring at a different desert.

Michael is with him when he realises that one of the female soldiers on base is being harassed, pressed back against a wall by a _charming asshole,_ who keeps insisting that he knows she _wants it_ as she tries to slip away from him without pissing him off, his two friends shouting encouragement from a few meters away. 

He sees Michael in 2 fights, in the Wild Pony parking lot. Although, he is careful not to get involved. He doesn’t want to risk distracting Michael again, he’s quite a good brawler but not if he has Alex around. The second fight leaves Alex wide eyed in surprise as Max Evans pulls up in one of the Sheriffs cars, dressed like a deputy and heads straight for Michael, with all the assurance that he’s the one to blame. Leaving the dicks that had been yelling slurs and ignorant bullshit, laughing and pointing at him while Max shoves him into the back of the car.

Alex had assumed he would ride with him, but as Max pulls out of the lot, Michael stares at him through the window and then purposefully turns his face away, shutting down and Alex is back in Iraq.

There is no denying that the entire situation is fucking weird and maybe Alex would be questioning his sanity more, if he wasn’t finding such comfort in it. But it seems that Alex has to add another layer to this already outrageous status quo.

Alex is usually stationed on base, in the communication tents deciphering codes, occasionally he is asked by analysts to hack for specific intel. But every once in a while, when his specific skills might be required, he is sent off base with his unit. Sometimes they receive intelligence telling them that the operation they will be infiltrating is advanced enough that there are computers on site that may need their encryption hacked in situ, or at the very least he might be needed to retrieve the computers systems and data to return them to base for further investigation.

What makes this day different to the other times his services have been requested is that he is half way through decrypting the system so he can copy it to an external drive when his Sargent’s voice starts blaring through his radio.

“All Airmen within site F, retreat ASAP. Get the fuck out of there!”

Alex starts disconnecting his drives and glances up at Airman Adams, who standing in the doorway. “Start heading out, it will take 15seconds to disconnect and I’ll be right behind you.”

It takes him 10 seconds. He is already out the door and down the corridor but the radio blares, “Take cover! Take cover!”

There’s the massive sound of an explosion and the building trembles so hard that Alex falls against the wall of the corridor, barely holding on to the drives. Michael appears, sees how Alex is dressed and says, “what’s happening?”

“Explosion. Not sure.” Alex straightens and starts heading out, he can see Airman Adams just inside the doorway, waiting for him.

“Wait!” Alex stops and turns back to hear what Michael wants to say. “If there are explosions outside, why are we going outside?”

“We were told to evacuate, for all I know there’s an RPG heading straight towards us. Better to follow orders.”

“Adams, sitrep?”

“RPGs, Sir,” She answers him. “I was told to hold our position.”

Alex doesn’t even have time to nod his agreement before everything blows up. He is thrown back, Danica landing on top of him. His ears are ringing and he’s dizzy, but he manages to push her off and get on his knees to stand up, hand against the wall to help him stand. Michael is shouting at him, but he can’t hear anything. Everything is shaking, there’s dust, sand and pieces of the walls and ceilings falling around him. Alex shakes his head to clear out.

“… need to run, Alex!”

Alex turns back to pick up Danica and drag her out with him. When suddenly he feels himself being grabbed and pulled back violently several meters, he crashes onto the floor. But he watches Danica slide along the floor with him, even though there is nothing touching her. The moment she’s out of the way half of the floor above them falls through and the wall collapses where they had been, a moment previously.

“Alex, get out! Get the fuck out! I can’t hold it forever.”

Alex looks at Michael and can’t compute what’s happening. His nose is bleeding, he’s shaking and he has his hands up… as if he was holding up the ceiling above them…

“Alex!”

Alex stands and this time manages to grab Danica under her arm pits and starts dragging her out towards the collapsed wall that used to be the door. As the three of them move, pieces of ceiling and the building above them start to collapse but instead of falling down, they fall sideways and backwards and into the spaces they are vacating, defying gravity.

Michael is defying gravity.

The moment he has daylight above him, other soldiers are helping him with Danica. All he has eyes for is Michael who has collapsed on to his knees, as if he has run a marathon. Alex tries to kneel besides him but the other soldiers are pulling him away.

He fights back, struggling against the hands dragging him back, making such a commotion, that Michael finally looks up at him.

“Go! I’m fine. I’m in my trailer. I’ll just sleep. I’m okay. I’ll just sleep.”

He disappears and Alex lets himself get taken away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday had been a long fucking day. Danica Adams, is fine, she has a concussion and since she’d been unconscious the whole time, she hadn’t seen anything weird. He could barely move and his entire back was blue, black and green. His ass was killing him and moving was hell. Alex had been given the day to rest. He’s lying in his bunk, on his front, in his military sweats his back is covered in Arnica and he has an ice pack on his right shoulder.

Alex thinks he’s about to fall asleep when he hears an angry male voice coming from behind him. He opens his eyes facing Michael. Michael’s eyes widen and he steps forward as if he’s heading towards him, but stops himself and tries not to react to Alex’s apparition. It’s unfortunate he can’t take the time to appreciate Alex, naked except for his low hanging military sweats and dog tags. Alex knows that as long as he doesn’t turn around and let Michael glimpse his back, he looks damn good.

Michael is standing somewhere out in the desert. But whoever is behind Alex is speaking furiously to him.

Alex doesn’t turn to see who it is. It seems unimportant. They always appear to each other in moments of emotional stress and he is here for Michael. He hasn’t seen him since yesterday’s disaster and he wants to be as close to him as possible. He walks towards him and slowly presses his whole body up against his side.

Alex leans his forehead against Michael’s and his hand rises enjoying the illusion of burying his fingers in curly hair, he misses more than anything. Eyes closed, breathing soft. A presence. Nothing more. He doesn’t want to distract him from whatever is putting so much tension in his body, whatever has his heartbeat racing and his good fist clenching. From whatever brought Alex here as support.

“…would never tell. How could you be so irresponsible? I can’t believe that you let this happen.”

“Let this happen?” Michael huffs, defensively. “We know nothing about ourselves. How do you suppose I try and control this? How could I stop something I didn’t know would happen?”

“What if this isn’t an us thing?” A female voice, breaks through.

Michael breaths deeply. “I’m the only unknown variable in this equation.”

Alex tries to hold him closer.

“I won’t tell him about you! I’ll just tell him about me. But I can’t,” Michael pauses and takes a deep breath. “I can’t not tell him about myself, I need to.”

“Michael,” _Isobel Evan’s voice_ is shrill with objection.

But Michael doesn’t allow her to finish her words. “Isobel, what else can I do? What’s happening to us… it’s not fucking normal. How do you want me to explain it? Yeah, I can stop bullets and move you out of the way of a falling building, without touching you, from the other side of the Atlantic. Mutants? Superheroes? This is just option 6 in a list of currently popular comic books. All of which, every fucking one would lead to the same shit scenario if anyone finds out about it.”

Alex doesn’t move from the secure hold he has around Michael’s body.

“If he tells…. If he tells… and _if_ they believe him, you don’t think he’s smart enough to work out that every possibility every conceivable worldly explanation he can make up to explain this… if he tells anyone in the military, in the air force… that he would doom us both to a lifetime of experimentation, dissection and pain.” Michael laughs bitterly, “twice over. Because if he can feel it when I’ve had a rough day… and I can feel it when a superior officer mentions his father’s name … when I can move a fucking bullet, so he doesn’t get hit, stop a building from falling on him, while I’m on a different fucking continent… you don’t think we’d feel it as they cut us both open to see what makes us tick?”

He’d be medically discharged. No way in hell anyone would believe him. But Alex hopes that Michael didn’t say all these things out loud for his benefit. He hopes that no matter what, no matter all the bullshit, all the unknown, he hopes that Michael can be certain of his trust in him. Also, he’s not a fucking idiot. 

“I don’t know why this is happening. I don’t know how. But I doubt Alex will just pretend it’s not happening.” Michael points out, “You would have to be pretty fucking weird for this shit to start happening to you and to decide to just let it go. I’m already pretty fucking weird and it’s freaking me the fuck out.”

“Can you explain it again? Are you sure maybe you’re imagining things?” Isobel adds hopefully. “You haven’t even spoken about this with him. Like, not even over an email or a phone call. Couldn’t this be just a weird dream?”

“It’s just not… it’s not.’ Michael sighs, “and it would be a fucking nightmare. Seeing Alex Manes getting shot at and blown up in Iraq is fucking horrific.”

“Yeah, about that, Alex fucking Manes? Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t believe you had sex with a guy in high school and I didn’t know. You had a sexual identity crisis and I didn’t know.”

“I did not have a crisis.” Michael states resolutely.

Alex can’t help but smile to himself. He would disagree. He’d had a crisis, but to be honest it had been a relatively short one. Less than 24 hours, very impressive.

“Wait, if you had sex with Alex Manes in high school why is this only happening now? He hasn’t been back since he enlisted.”

Max interrupts, “Why do you keep saying Alex Manes. We all know who he is.”

Isobel shushes him.

“Look, I am not talking about this shit with you two.” Michael hesitates, before continuing, “he came back before his deployment.”

Both Isobel and Max speak over each other, “Just to see you?” - “We need more details, so we can figure it out and stop it.”

Michael gestures at Isobel, “No!” and then at Max, “Fuck you! I don’t need to do shit.”

Max stands straighter, posturing, “We need to stop this. It puts all of us in danger and then when Alex comes back to Roswell. Isobel can make him forget.”

In the stillness that follows all Alex can think is; Isobel can do what now?

Michael vibrates out of Alex’s presence and storms forward, “Oh, sure let me put a stop to this ability I have to help Alex, who is fighting in a fucking war zone, to actually dodge bullets. Sure! Why? Because King Maximillian Evans demands my obedience. Fuck you, Max.”

He is meters away from Max but his powers have come on line because Max is being pushed back until he slams against the car behind him.

“Michael!” Isobel moves forward to try and put a restraining hand on him, to try and talk him down.

Michael shakes her off. “I’m not asking for your permission. This is me telling you both that I will be sharing our secret with someone I trust. Alex’s deployment finishes in a few weeks, I’ll tell him then.”

Max steps forward to continue arguing but Michael keeps speaking.

“I have been alone since I was seven years old. You’ve had each other and I’ve had no one. I never ask you for anything. Never, I’ve never asked anyone for anything. And I am not asking for this. So, accept it.” Michael swings round and heads back towards Alex. He calls back over his shoulder. “This was a fucking courtesy call, Max. So, move the fuck on.”

“I’m still parked out on Foster’s Ranch, the dirt road after the ‘Keep Moving and Find Jesus’ sign.”

“Michael, I know where you fucking park your fucking Airstream.” Isobel chases after him, “and don’t think you’re getting off this lightly. I need all the details about Alex Manes. Meet me at the Pony tonight and I’ll buy you a drink. I can be smug that I know something that Maria DeLuca, psychic extraordinaire, does not.”

Michael takes a deep breath and Alex is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sex: This chapter is mostly sex, some plot but mostly passionate reunion

He’s taken a seat in the well-used and sun wasted metallic chair outside Michael’s Airstream. When Alex first sat, the chair had been blistering hot, but he’d moved it until he was protected by the shade, under the fabric frame strung overhead near the barbecue area Michael seemed to be setting up. He hasn’t been there more than a couple of hours when Michael pulls up in his truck. The sun is setting, the desert glows around them and until this moment Alex had been enjoying the twilight hour and stillness surrounding him.

Michael must stop a moment to take in his presence outside of his Airstream because it takes a while for him to step out of the truck. Alex can imagine him building up some courage to face him… to have this conversation. 

He stays where he is and lets Michael take the time to step out of the truck and walk towards him.

When Michael is standing over him, Alex looking up the length of his body, he breaks the silence. “So… fucking an alien, in Roswell, New Mexico. You’ve turned me in to the worst kind of cliché.”

“How’d you guess?”

“It was the obvious comic book trope you didn’t mention, or purposefully avoided, one could say.” He shrugs, “and this _is_ Roswell.”

Michael doesn’t reach out, waiting for Alex to decide how to proceed.

“Hey!” Alex greets him properly. He stands, their bodies barely separated and he raises both his hands, reaching out slowly to bridge the space between them, waiting to see if Michael will stop him. He doesn’t.

He curls his palms around Michaels neck, thumbs pressing under his jaw and forces Michael to meet his eyes as they both study each other, reacquaint each other with their faces.

Finally, Michael sighs, relieved. His own hands circle Alex’s wrists as he presses his forehead against Alex’s and breaths.

“I’m glad you’re okay,”

“‘Course I’m okay, Michael, in my worst moments, you are with me.”

They barely have to shift their faces a fraction before their mouths meet, pressing against each other for a moment and then opening with desperation. The gladness and tranquillity evaporate replaced with urgent need.

The chair, Alex had been sitting on, flies to one side out of the way and Michael walks him back the couple steps to slam him against the Airstream’s exterior. Alex doesn’t have the brain cells to decide what to do with his hands. It’s been more than 6 months since anyone has touched him and all he wants is to switch his brain off and let Michael rip him apart and put him together again.

He must try to say something, because Michael pulls back to give his mouth the liberty to speak. “Do everything you want. Anything. Please. Please Michael. Please.”

Michael studies him a moment, grabs his shirt in his fist and drags towards the door, which flies open without him even touching it. He drags Alex in, behind him, feet tripping, limbs useless. But Alex is obedient and dazed and allows himself to be moved and stripped and pushed back on to the bed.

While Michael flings his shirt over his head, his belt unbuckles itself. Alex watches, fascinated as the zipper moves down alone and an unseen energy pushes Michael’s jeans over his hips. He sits on the edge of the mattress to kick of his shoes and in moments Michael is hovering over Alex and… stillness comes between them.

Michael lowers himself between Alex’s legs and rests his forehead on Alex’s belly. His head rises and falls with the movement of Alex’s heavy breathing, Michael’s hands drift up his sides, touching his ribs, palms pausing over his chest, hands moving when Alex’s ribcage expands and contracts, feeling his breathing, his heartbeat. Alex reaches out and buries his fingers in Michael’s tangled curls.

For a moment it is enough. The press of warm naked skin, the gentle movements of their bodies against each other, with each other, holding each other. After so many months of hands that almost felt like touch, of presence that almost felt like coexistence.

But heat and need eventually builds up again. Alex tugs Michael’s hair back, forces his eyes up to meet his and puts pressure on the back of Michael’s head to try and guide his mouth up to meet his. They can’t fit on the bed this way, Michael’s legs bent up so his legs don’t hang off the mattress, the space is too small.

But Michael resists his guidance. Stares at Alex. His fingers find the dog tags that sit between Alex’s collar bones and he coils the chain around his fingers until he’s holding them firmly, the chain tattooing lines on Alex’s neck, then he twists his head down and takes the head of Alex’s cock into his mouth.

Alex can’t help but arch up and cry out. The pressure, the intensity, the violent need Michael builds up in him. His feet flex and heels press down and he wants to trap Michael between his thighs and bury himself inside his throat. Michael keeps one hand firmly on the chain tightening around Alex’s neck and his other hand moves to force Alex’s hips to stillness on the bed. They are opposing strengths fighting and coming together.

Alex comes into Michael’s mouth so quickly. But the need in him doesn’t recede, the wave barely retreats before its crashing back against him. He’s gasping and Michael pulls off Alex’s dick and out of Alex’s grip on his hair. The blur of movement flies towards him and lube and condoms fall on to his chest, out of nowhere. Michael is kneeling up on the bed, between Alex’s legs, grabbing lube and pouring it onto his fingers.

Alex moves one leg over Michael’s shoulder and presses the other as far as he can stretch along the wall of the Airstream to give Michael room to see when he presses a finger, then two into Alex. Not deeply, just playing around, softening the muscles of Alex’s sphincter getting him used to the intrusion, spreading lube around and inside, slipping between one and two and eventually three, slowly, stretching him out his only purpose. But for a moment he presses in deeper, the couple of inches needed to press against Alex’s prostate and remind him of its existence, make him gasp out. Deeper, past the knuckles that help to stretch Alex just a little bit further.

It’s so good, unfamiliar, so intimate, so invasive, a sensation Alex had forgotten in the age since he’d last allowed himself to be touched this way. Michael is careful but firm and insistent and definitely pushing Alex to take and take rather than lulling him into adjusting. He’s a guitar string being tightened to breaking point and Michael is plucking at him and making his body sing with his fingers.

Alex feels air press in all around his body helping the slippery fingers that grab onto his knees and pull his body forward till his ass rests up on top of Michael’s thighs. Alex’s hands fly overhead to use the wall behind him as leverage. His body is sprawled and open for Michael. Those slippery fingers slide up his thighs holding his legs out and up and when Alex feels pressure, he bares down to relax and Michael slowly breeches and pushes himself inside.

And this… this is what he’s been wanting. This is what he’s needed and that only Michael has ever been able to provide. This unrestrained, unrelenting, openness that Alex has only ever been able to give to Michael.

Michael is holding Alex’s hips, suspended in the air and every time he presses his pelvis forward and his cock inside, he presses on Alex’s prostate until the pressure builds and builds to too much, too much but Alex wants it. He’s got his hands still pressed to the wall over his head, a counter force to Michael’s thrusts and Michael looks down at him, watching him and his every groan and cry and repeating every movement that makes him gasp out.

It’s just fucking but it’s everything.

He thinks he’s turned Michael’s name into a mantra. Eventually it must call to him, because he lowers Alex’s hips to the bed, without releasing him and falls forwards, trailing his mouth up his chest, neck to press against Alex’s mouth. Alex hooks his legs around Michael’s waist and barely allows Michael’s hips to pull his cock out from inside him and they just rock together. One hand grabbing Michael’s ass and digging his nails in to make sure he stays inside where Alex needs him so he can let the fire inside him spark and burn out.

He can barely kiss Michael back, he’s gasping and breathless and Michael hooks his hands over Alex’s shoulder to push him down, further down on to his dick, closer, when they can’t get any closer than they already are. Lips touching, mouths gasping into each other, Michael biting and soothing with his tongue, pelvis rocking in to him, abdomen pressing on Alex’s cock, trapped between them.

Coming is intense, thrilling, exhilarating but Michael keeps fucking him through it and everything is just so much. He can’t tell where his orgasm begins, crests and ends because he feels used up and overwhelmed and loved and Michael is setting him on fire. He’s grateful when Michael collapses on top of him, sated. Alex hasn’t been touched in months and he doesn’t want Michael to ever let him go.

He can’t say that he clings to Michael, he’s not. He’s boneless; arms and legs flopped down unmoving. He’s still out of breath, doesn’t know if they ran a sprint or a marathon. Michael on top of him, heavy, slippery with sweat and wonderful. But eventually, he’s the one that pulls away. He unhooks Alex’s legs from around his hips and thighs as he draws his own hips away and Alex whines with over stimulated shivers as Michael’s cock leaves his body.

He doesn’t leave the bed but uses his telekinesis to get rid of the condom and grab a towel. He cleans the sweat and come off of Alex, then uses it on his own body and finally eyes meeting Alex’s dazed gaze, he parts Alex’s legs and carefully wipes him down of the mess of lube and sweat and come around his groin and between his ass cheeks.

Alex’s legs flinch together involuntarily but he lets Michael finish, drop the towel off the side of the bed, crawl up and drops down along Alex’s side, half on top of him separating him from the wall of the Airstream.

Neither of them speaks. To be honest, Alex doesn’t even move, not even to make himself more comfortable, or to pull the sheets up from wherever, because suddenly he shivers with a chill and his skin goose bumps. Michael notices, and a blanket floats up to cover them both. Michael reaches for him and his fingers trace the lines of Alex’s dog tags.

Alex recognises that compared to Michael, he’s so tired. He hadn’t slept on the plane, buzzing with anticipation and nerves and sexual tension. He feels his eyes drift closed and he flickers them open and sighs.

Michael hums in question.

“I’m too tired for now. I drove straight here off the plane.” Alex justifies, though nobody has asked anything of him. Especially not Michael who does not respond just continues to repeatedly circle his finger around the edge of the metal plates. Alex finally puts a stop to it, grabbing his wrist and drawing it down to his stomach and he turns within the circle of Michael’s arm to press his back against Michael’s chest. So, he can fall asleep on his side with Michael pressed against him.

“You can wake me up with sex in the morning, if you want.” Alex shares as he drifts off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Michael is complying with Alex’s request when he wakes up. He wakes up with a sigh, with Michael around him, inhaling the smell of his skin, exhaling his name. For long minutes Alex is barely conscience of Michael’s hands roaming over his skin, stroking and exploring and touching and pressing. He wakes himself up a little further when all those things start to concentrate in one location.

Eventually, Michael nudges him flat, crawls between his legs to push he dick into him again, unhurried and lazy.

Alex’s strokes down his chest to wrap his fingers round his cock and awakens further when he encounters latex. He glances up at Michael, who doesn’t pause the soft, leisurely thrusts that press into Alex’s open body.

“This isn’t what I really wanted this morning; you know?”

Processing, Alex’s synapses wake up and come on line all at once.

It takes a few moments to evaluate and account for all the sensations that overwhelm his body. His lips are dry and swollen, the heat of what feels like stubble burn around his neck, under his jaw, the twitch of unused muscles suddenly being over worked, Michael’s cock inside him but the ache left over from last night.

Alex pulls back, away, lifts one leg out of Michaels grip, pulls it towards his chest, then places the sole of his foot on Michael’s stomach and pushes firmly. Michael’s dick slips out of his body. Michael smirks down at him and Alex twists up on to his knees, grabs Michaels shoulders and manoeuvres him round and presses him insistently, strongly, securely, uncomfortably into the half wall at the foot of the bed that divides the space from the kitchen.

Michael huffs a laugh, hands up to stop himself from crashing forwards onto the countertop beyond and tries to push back. But Alex keeps him there one hand in the centre of his back forcing his compliance the other slipping down between Michael’s ass cheeks to see how far Michael had let his morning plans progress.

Far enough.

Alex grabs onto Michael’s hips, tugs him back forcefully, his knees sliding back on the mattress, sheets sliding and gathering up and adding to the mess from last night. He purposefully leaves Michael off balance, scrambling for purchase on the wall, halfway bent over it, one hand thrown out to catch himself on the kitchen counter.

He kneels between Michael’s legs and presses them open further, so he can fit between his thighs. He doesn’t remove his hand from where it presses Michael down. His other hand slides down the length of Michael’s torso, around the front of his hips, over his groin to slide under, touch Michael’s balls and up to jerk him off for a second, then back between his slippery ass cheeks, to slide two fingers in and press forward to stroke his fingers over Michael’s prostate. He cries out but Alex barely lets him feel it before he’s pulling his fingers out and pushing his cock into Michael’s warm tight heat until the length of their thighs press together.

“Fuck, Alex.”

“Mmmm, is this what you wanted this morning, Michael?” He keeps his hips pressed forward, still, Michael tries to squirm back and encourage movement but Alex has a firm hold on him and doesn’t let him move.

“Fucking fuck me! Private!” Michael huffs out.

Alex is good at following orders; he’s going to fuck Michael’s brains out. He pulls out slowly and thrusts in, hard. Michael cries out, and Alex wants him to make that sound every time he pushes into him. He slides both hands to Michael’s hips and next time he slides in he also pulls Michael back on to himself, Michael’s ass cheeks slapping on to Alex’s thighs, when they meet.

It’s quick, and hard and furious, by the time Michael comes, Alex is using the strength in his arms and Michael’s knees hover off the bed as Alex rocks him back on to his dick with every thrust. Michael collapses onto the wall that supports him and Alex keeps fucking him through the overwhelming post orgasmic sensitivity until he comes inside him.

Alex slowly lowers Michael’s knees back on to the bed and gently lets himself fall forward on to Michael’s sweaty, panting back. Now that his hands are not needed to hold Michael’s hips up, they stroke up his body, around his chest, over his abdomen. He fondles Michael’s dick and removes the condom they hadn’t bothered to take off once they’d switched positions. Michael moans and bats his hand away, but half-heartedly, and Alex finishes pulling it off and dropping it over the side of the bed onto the last nights dirty towel.

Alex presses kisses on to Michael’s shoulder blades until Michael lifts his face out of his crossed arms and moves one arm back to Alex’s hip and pushes him back weakly. Alex takes that to mean, please take your dick out of my asshole. Moves to hold on to the condom as he gently pulls out from Michael’s body and moves back to give Michael the space to collapse on to the bed.

This time Alex, takes the time to clean Michael up. Using the mess of sheets that are tangled under their bodies. Before letting himself fall alongside Michael.

They’re catching their breath; Michael floats a bottle of water over, which they share. They’re wrong side up on the bed, feet where their heads had slept. Parts of their sweaty, tangled bodies occasionally touching bare mattress or clumped up sheets. It’s definitely not comfortable but they are too easily distracted to begin to set things right. Alex had hitched his hips up to pull out bedding that had lumped itself into his lower back, but instead Michael had grabbed his hip and pulled him to lay half on top of him so they can make out and Michael can stroke reverently up and down Alex’s back, hip, groin, ass cheeks and ass crack, no skin left untouched by his palms and fingers.

Alex has the habit of focusing his touch on Michael’s face. His own fingers stroking lips, over Michael’s eye brows, around his ears, thumbs under his jaw to guide Michael’s mouth or press firmly into the back of his neck, pulling at the mess of curls on his head. Occasionally, he’ll slide down his throat to rest his fingers over the thrumming pulse of his carotid.

He’s not sure how long they share this leisurely love making, going nowhere just quenching their need for each other, bathing in their presence. But eventually Alex pulls back, lips numb.

“Is this my alien abduction? Will the prisoner be fed?”

Michael groans hands moving up to press against his eye sockets, elbows moving out to stretch, then collapsing back. He sits up, presses Alex flat on to his back and almost convinces him that he plans to just continue having sex. But instead Michael swings his legs over Alex and stands.

He stretches again, reaching up, hands flat against the ceiling of the Airstream, unashamedly naked. Alex reaches out and puts his hand on the soft skin on the inside of his thigh, under Michael’s groin. But Michael grabs his wrist and pulls him out from between his thighs and then up and Alex has to allow himself to be tugged upwards to sit.

The sound of something opening, shutting and black boxer briefs fly into Michael’s hand. He pulls them on and moves to stand in front of the stove. “I don’t have American coffee, but I can add hot water to the espresso.”

“Do I not get a pair of those?”

Michael looks over with an arched eyebrow. “If you’re not planning on standing at the hot stove then there’s really no need.” He claims.

Alex silently accepts the state of affairs and sits back against the wall of the Airstream watching Michael take apart and put together the Italian coffee maker he has.

“I didn’t know when you were coming. So, I have eggs. But I’ll grab groceries for omelettes and bacon and pancakes or whatever, once we’re done.” Michael’s movements in his kitchen are efficient and practiced. His healed, broken fingers barely getting in his way. Coffee is done first and he hands a half full mug over to Alex. “Water?”

Alex shakes his head and breathes in the smell of coffee losing himself in the perfection of this moment. His body aching with sex and his senses filled with the promise of caffeine.

“Do you think it could be a sex thing?” Alex breaks the silence.

Michael is scrambling eggs and his movements still, interrupted for a second. “Because we do it so damn fucking well?” He jokes.

“Seriously! We do need to talk about this.”

Michael is slow to answer but when he does, it is with certainty. “No.” Alex freezes a moment but Michael continues, “I don’t think it’s a sex thing.”

Oh, right. “Why not?”

“If it was just a sexual connection, we could assume that sex with other people would interrupt our connection. And we’ve both had sex with other people since we last had sex with each other.” He glances over at Alex.

Alex frowns, “girls… and guys?”

“Well, after the last time with you, yes. After you left on your deployment. When you decided to follow tradition and let me be the one to pop the last of your cherries.” Michael is smug.

Alex, ignores him, “Where do you go to pick up guys in fucking Roswell?”

Michael glances over at him. “Why, do you need some fucking pointers?”

“No,” Alex placates, “I have you in Roswell.”

“Of course, I imagine you have a girl in every port.”

Michael hands over a plate with scrambled eggs and a fork. Alex rests his coffee mug on the half wall and accepts the plate offering, in silence. Michael’s comment requires no response, it was very obviously, bitchy.

Michael sits beside him with his own plate and they eat silently.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I feel like I just gave you my entire sexual history. The least you could do is share something about you.”

Alex stares blankly at him from across the pillow they are sharing. “Not while I was deployed… DADT is an actual thing that makes my heart beat out of my chest and my intestines want to crawl up my oesophagus every time the soldiers in my unit make a fag joke, as you know.” Alex gestures at him with his fork and takes another bite. “But during the two years of tech school and my apprenticeship with Cyber… yeah. I was in Texas… So not great, but San Angelo is only three and a half hours from Austin, and I felt freer there.”

“Yeah, I know. You were only four and a half hours from Roswell. You think I didn’t know where you were?” Michael purposefully avoids looking at his face and his jaw line pulses.

Michael’s confession leaves Alex speechless.

“I couldn’t come back. I just couldn’t.”

“Sure.” Michael stands, reaches over for Alex’s plate and floats his coffee mug back into Alex’s empty hands. He goes and places their dishes in the sink. Putting distance between them. He didn’t have to move to do that. He wanted to.

“I was trying to get over you, Michael. I’d go to Austin and go to the clubs. I even had… like a boyfriend for a few months. Casual. I’d see him regularly during the weekends but he was anonymous. None of my colleagues knew he existed.”

“Your point?”

Michael leans back against the counter behind him. Arms folded over his chest. Still looking beautiful in his black booty shorts, unembarrassed. Alex on the other hand feels exposed and he pulls the sheets over his shoulders and his knees up to his chest.

“I don’t know, Michael. I don’t know what my point is. I just couldn’t come back. My Dad was here, I was terrified and traumatised and you were here… and I fucking missed you but…” Alex shakes his head, “I could say it was easy to be without you, to deny you, to not need you, to live without you… and it was, it fucking was but I…” Alex breathes in a deep shaky breath, “When they told me I was being deployed, to Iraq. The only thing I wanted was for you to hold me and tell me I would be okay. And I had to come back.”

Michael doesn’t reply. But it gives Alex the opportunity to bring up something he’s been fearing since this started to happen to them.

“Do you think…” Alex hesitates, before rushing to finish his thought. “Do you think it, it was The Shed? That what happened when… That’s when we connected?”

Michael frowns, then smirks, “What? Losing our virginities to each other? Very Victorian gothic romantic, don’t you think? Also, I wasn’t a virgin.”

“No… Michael. Not that.” The moment is too fraught to be talked about in plain words. “The… the violence afterwards. Do you think that’s when… what connected us?”

“What? Alex! No.” Michael straightens up from his casual lean on the counter and steps forward to kneel on the mattress in front of Alex. “No. I know it wasn’t. I know because nothing your father could do to us… anyone could do to us… has the power to bridge a connection between us both. We did this ourselves, only us.”

Alex opens his mouth to interrupt but Michael places his broken fingers on his lips to stop him.

“I also know, from a more logical perspective. If it was in the shed… you would have spent the next year travelling to me.” Michael takes a deep breath. “Those were not good months. Even when you were still with me in Roswell before you enlisted. I was not in a good place. I was barely holding it together. Between the pain, giving up my future, UNM, Isobel, Max. I was such a fucking mess, Alex. I…” He shakes his head and looks down at the scared fingers on his lap. “Alex, it was fucking awful.”

Alex reaches out for Michael and pulls him forwards until he straddling Alex’s legs and he embraces him. It takes a moment for Michael to tentatively raise his own arms around Alex and hug him back.

“Is this the plan for the day?” Michael interrupts the quiet a long time later. He’d been playing with Alex’s hair for most of the time they held each other. Rubbing his fingers through the short sides.

“What? Fucking and trying to figure this out?”

Michael shrugs like he can’t think of anything better to do.

Alex shakes his head free and shoves Michael off him and on to the mattress and stands. “Teach me how to shower in here. I was travelling for over 30 hours before we fucked. I feel disgusting. You can change the sheets and we can start all over again.” He stretches out, reaching to the ceiling like Michael had.

Alex is in the shower, washing his hair and scrubbing himself, using the unscented medical soap to finger himself clean quickly. When he’s letting the water run over to wash the suds off, he finds himself laughing suddenly.

Michael opens the door that separates them, “What? Why are you laughing?”

“Only you could state ‘I’ve been with other people’ and legitimately think that’s a discussion of your entire sexual history.”

“It’s the second longest conversation I’ve ever had about it.”

He shrugs, Alex shakes his head. “Hand me a towel and switch with me.”

“I think you’re overestimating the size of that bathroom, if you think we can switch in there.”

Alex pulls him in and it’s a tight squeeze but they don’t mind being pressed together. They shuffle round each other and Alex shoves Michael into the shower, underwear and all.

“Towel?” Alex asks, when he realises he’d skipped an important step in his need to prove Michael wrong about the size of his bathroom.

The towel flies into his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I had to re-watch so many scenes to understand the layout of Michel’s Airstream. But I also simply need to point out that in Canon in their first on screen Airstream sex scene they start the evening on one side of the bed and wake up the next morning with their head on the opposite side. FYI! I interpret this to mean canon Alex and Michael have very athletic sex. The End
> 
> Okay not the end… Alien STDs… I actually googled to see if home testing kits exist (they do, useful to know during a Pandemic) but you still need to send them back to a lab… so that’s out. How complicated would it be for Michael to make a home testing lab? He’s a genius and I think he’s responsible enough to want to know if he would catch or transmit anything … I almost made this a scene… but it was too much off plot, minutia


	4. Chapter 4

They get back into bed once they are showered. Michael had changed and made the bed while Alex was cleaning himself up. Alex had asked him to get dressed and go and get his stuff from out of his rental truck but instead Michael got him a second pair of boxer briefs from out of his closet and gently coaxed Alex back into bed.

They are tangled together, touching, half hard, but not going anywhere, satisfied with the low-grade tension and need making their skin hum.

“We can’t stay here for the entire length of my leave. We need to eat, buy groceries, condoms, talk about… everything.”

“Do laundry,” Michael adds.

“Where do you take it? We’ll run out of sheets if we keep destroying the bed this way.”

“Isobel’s,” Michael answers, “usually when she’s out. I sneak in. Use my,” he wiggles his fingers in the air, “to unlock the door. She knows I do it but…”

“Tell me about your powers.” Alex demands gently.

“Tell me about this leave,” Michael dodges, rubbing his face into the crook of Alex’s neck and leaving little bites along his jawline. Alex tilts his head allowing Michael to explore as he answers.

“I have one week. They offered me a really good opportunity in Berlin. If I reupped, I could finish the last 6 months of this tour doing an elite training thing in cryptography, cyber-cracking, and telecommunications in Germany. They’ll promote me so I start my second tour as a Sargent and a Craftsman in Cyber Warfare Operations. I’ll need a minimum of 20 months stateside before I can get deployed again. Who knows where? The US always finds new places to send us to go and liberate.”

Michael pulls back, incredulous. “Alex, I thought you hated this shit. I thought you hated the military. You’re doing a second tour? What the hell?”

Alex rubs his hands up and down Michael’s arms. “I do hate it. I hate war. I hate the patriotic pride that makes American boys enlist to become heroes. I hate the macho bullshit. I hate DADT. But…” Alex hesitates, “I’m good at it, Michael and it’s been a long time since I felt like I was good at anything.”

Michael doesn’t reply and Alex keeps going. “Remember at the beginning of senior year at school we did that aptitude test? The ASVAB? You know it stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, right?”

“Of course, I fucking know, Alex. I made sure to bomb it. Last thing I fucking needed was the US military sniffing around the poor, homeless, orphan, _alien_ kid with my kind of scores.”

“Yeah, well… I didn’t bomb it. Not with my dad around, he would have killed me. I fucking aced it. I didn’t even really realise, until I was at the recruitment office and they looked me up in the system. To be honest, I was so horrified at myself for even being there that I don’t think I really noticed until I was a couple of weeks into basic and the career guys started speaking to me to see where I’d go to tech school, before my first deployment. They said I could take my pick because of my scores.”

Michael watches him as he speaks, so focused, so attentive. They’d never really shared much about their lives before.

“You know I was the youngest,” Alex continues. “Whenever we did family drills, I was last, I was the slowest, I fell more, got hurt more. And my brothers… I mean they’re dicks now. They’re fucking grown ass men. But back then… we were fucking kids, Michael. They used to think dad would go easy on me because I was the baby and they’d throw me under the bus to save themselves.” Alex shakes his head despondently.

“The first time someone asked me who my CO was, I nearly puked with fear until I realised, they weren’t talking about my dad. They were just asking who my fucking, commanding officer was.”

Michael strokes over his skin and it seems to help ground him and bring him back to the present.

“Well, all this to say, I fucking aced my ASVAB and I fucking aced basic, Warhawk scores. Apparently, Roswell High missed out, not recruiting the gay punk kid to all the sports teams. I would have kicked ass.”

Michael studies him. “I didn’t realise you trained at home… I mean, I knew you did something… a gay punk kid doesn’t punch Valenti in the face with such finesse without some training. But I didn’t realise it was that extreme.”

“Really, you didn’t notice my abs when you got me naked?”

“Darling, I was too distracted by your dick.” Michael starts dragging the sheet down, slowly pressing his mouth in a line down his chest and abdomen. He glances up and meets Alex’s eyes. “I sure as fuck notice your abs now!” He slips the broken fingers of his left hand under the elastic of his briefs caressing the skin.

“Yeah, you planning to do something about it?”

“What do you want?” Michael asks him.

“For you to tell me why you don’t want to talk about yourself.”

Michael freezes and pulls away, sitting back on his heels, staring at Alex.

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about myself, I just…” he collapses on to the bed besides Alex and focuses on the ceiling. “I’ve never ever talked about myself with anyone. Never...”

Alex turns on to his side to face Michael and studies his profile before he presses a few kisses on to Michael’s naked shoulder and rests his head on his chest.

“I don’t ever want to make you do something you don’t want, Michael.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to… I just don’t know what to say.” Michael’s arms creep up around Alex’s back to hold him in close.

“What are your powers?” Alex starts with easy questions that Michael might find easier to answer.

“Just telekinesis,” Michael replies.

“Don’t say 'just'. It’s amazing Michael. You saved me, don’t diminish it.”

“Usually, I just use it to change tools while I’m under a truck. It’s not that big a deal.”

“It is to me.” Alex turns his head and presses a kiss to his sternum. “So, Max and Isobel are your brother and sister? Kinda makes it weird that I asked you if you were in love with Max, that one time.”

Michael shrugs. “We were found together, we all have powers, we think of each other as siblings. Biologically? We don’t know. None of us have donated DNA to have that checked out in a lab.”

“Does anyone else know about you?” Michael shakes his head and Alex asks, “how did you keep this a secret for such a long time? You were kids. I can’t imagine how scary that was.”

“I got exorcized once?”

Alex leverages up on his elbows and turns to face Michael, in shock.

Michael avoids looking at him, eyes still focused on the ceiling. “Yeah, I was moving things when I was scared or angry. I’d make all the crucifixes and religious icons shake. I would have made books and paintings and china cats shake if they’d of had any around but they were religious, anything that wasn’t a crucified Jesus or Virgin or Saint was considered blasphemous and heretical. So, I made the religious shit shake and they thought I was possessed by the devil.”

“Michael,” Alex doesn’t know what to say.

“Priest got carried away and burned a cross into my arm. They noticed at school, it’s how I ended up in Roswell in the end. After the religious freaks.”

Alex sits up at Michael’s side, facing him and grabs his arm to run his fingers over the old scar tissue and discoloured skin that was still on his forearm. Then he runs his fingers further down and strokes the scars on his knuckles and crooked fingers. Michael lets him.

“I suppose an exorcism is one way to teach a kid to stop doing things out of the norm.” Michael breathes in deeply.

Alex doesn’t release Michael’s hand from his grip, just gently rubs over the deformed shapes, dips and lumps, stiff joints, shattered bones, ruptured tendons, torn muscles while he speaks.

“Before the Jesus freaks, I ran away from the second place I was ever placed in. Meth heads,” Michael adds as if that is any kind of explanation. “I don’t know where I ended up, but it was a massive parking lot, or car cemetery or something. I couldn’t hear a single sound or person anywhere and I just shouted and shouted…” He looks distant, remembering, “and suddenly all the cars started moving away from me, crashing into each other. It was so loud; I think it shocked me out of it. That was the first time I ever used them. I was 8, or almost 9.”

“How did you find Max and Isobel again?”

Michael meets Alex’s eyes and pulls his hand out of Alex’s hold and starts to move to get out of bed, “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

Alex grips his wrist and arm to stop him from getting up and slides his body up and on top of him to keep him still. “Okay, it’s fine. We don’t have to keep talking but I don’t want to get out of bed.”

Alex feels how all of Michael’s body tenses, as if to push Alex off. But then Michael freezes, smirks and suddenly Alex is being gently lifted by a cushion of air and flipped on to his back, without being touched.

He stays where Michael puts him and Michael hovers at his side as if he can’t quite decide to get out of bed now that Alex is not pinning him down or to turn around and pin Alex down instead.

Alex decides to help him along in his decision. He closes his eyes, gets comfortable and slides his hand down his own chest, slides under the briefs he’s wearing to grab his cock and slowly starts stroking himself to hardness. “You moved me like that last night, just before you got your cock in me. Did you do it on purpose or was it instinctual?” He can feel Michael’s eyes on him as he asks.

“It’s you,” Michael replies without answering Alex’s question and without looking away.

“Hmmmm, do you think you could jerk me off? Finger me open without using your fingers?” Alex lets his imagination run.

“It’s not fingers or hands, that’s not really…”

Michael drifts off but seems to make a decision. He stands and Alex pulls his hand off his dick to pull Michael back but half way through completing the action his hand freezes in mid-air, his body is pulled into the middle of the bed and both wrists meet in the space above him before they are tugged up and over and pined back to the wall behind him.

His legs are unrestricted and his heels push into the mattress as if to try and buck himself free but Michael’s head tilts to the side and Alex’s hips are pinned down.

Alex gasps, his heart is pounding and his adrenaline is building up but his cock is hard and he is suddenly desperate for Michael’s touch.

“Freaked out?” Michael ask’s him, without moving from his spot, standing by the bed, looking down at him.

“It’s you,” Alex replies without answering Michael’s question. “Come here and spread my legs out yourself.”

“Whether I’m touching you or not, it’s always me.” Slowly Alex feels his boxers start sliding down off his hips, down over his thighs, knees, calves, ankles and fly off somewhere behind Michael. His cock is stiff, arching over his groin.

“Michael, fucking kiss me!” Alex demands trying to tug his hands free from the position above his head to grab Michael and force him down beside him. But he’s still pinned in place.

Michael very slowly slides to sit beside Alex and does not follow through with Alex’s command. He’s studying Alex with his eyes, sweeping over him from fingers to toes and then moves with his hands to follow his gaze with his touch.

Alex tries to use his feet to kick Michael out of his single-minded attention but with his hips also pinned down and Michael beside him, his feet are useless weapons. Michael’s fingers circle round his nipples, brush up through the slightly darker hair growing on Alex’s chest, dip into the hollows of his collarbone, over his neck where Alex swallows automatically and he gets distracted by the movement of his Adam’s apple.

“Michael!”

“Say something else, I can feel the vibrations of your voice in your throat.”

Alex freezes with the desire that burns through him. The only thing he is capable of doing is letting air enter and exit his lungs. The burning need rises within him and Michael must recognise it because he finally leans toward hm and presses his mouth to his shoulder. The only thing Alex can move is his head and he arches it back to give Michael access and he follows through pressing his hot mouth repeatedly moving millimetre by millimetre up towards his jaw.

Until he stops, “say something for me, Private.”

“Please, please kiss me.”

Michael breathes him in, mouth pressed under his jaw, experiencing the vibrations in his throat. Then he moves his hand to the back of Alex’s head, fingers gripping and pulling him back to press their mouths together in a furious, desperate kiss.

Alex lets himself be led, heels pressing into the mattress, toes arching out in reaction to his pleasure.

“Touch me!” Alex gasps in to his mouth.

Michael purposefully misunderstands that he meant for the kissing and touching to happen at the same time and when he pulls away Alex whines with disappointment. He studies Alex, all his naked body presented to him. Purposefully, he lifts his hand to touch the tips of Alex’s fingers, still pressed against the wall above Alex’s head. He strokes over them lightly, down the knuckles, the webbing in between, over his palms, Alex’s fingers twitching in reaction. Over his wrists, down the inside of his forearms, down, tracing, lightly stroking, the inside of his elbows.

In a moment Michael is swinging a leg over Alex’s thighs, crouching over him and pressing both his palms into the heat of Alex’s armpits. Alex presses back into him, as much as he can but he’s still held down. Michael is lost in his exploration. Moving both his hands down over his chest, stopping to press fingers into freckles and beauty spots, scars and birthmarks.

It’s both easy to enjoy Michael’s single-minded attention, bask in his touch, savour his presence yet Alex shivers in frustrated, unfulfilled need. Michael is barely even hard and Alex feels like he is holding on to the edge. Michael’s hands reach his groin. Thumbs and fingers framing his hard-on but not touching, he pauses for a moment before he keeps moving down over his thighs.

His eyes flick up to Alex’s face to evaluate. Alex’s legs held down by Michael’s thighs, not his powers. But he moves to kneel between his legs, lifting one with both hands as his fingers dance down the inside of Alex’s thigh. Alex uses the freedom of his legs to press the sole of his foot to Michael’s chest, over his thundering heartbeat.

Michael, strokes swiftly down his calf, over his ankle to trace the arch of his foot and over each one of his toes, then he stops.

Alex stares at him silently, waiting calmly. Michael’s attention feels like a gift.

When Michael finally releases Alex’s arms. He also pulls him up, so his ass rests on his kneeling thighs, like he had the night before. With his liberated arms, Alex crunches up and wraps his arms around Michael’s neck and shoulders and his legs cross around Michael’s waist. Michael’s hands clutching at his hips, pulling him close, their torsos press together. Alex’s fingers, as always, end up tangled in Michael’s curls. Their faces pressed together, side by side as they breathe each other in.

“I’m so glad it’s you.” Alex breathes, dragging his nose up and down over the stubble of Michael’s cheek bones. “I’m so glad, you are you.”

Michael nudges Alex’s head back and they twist together so their lips, their mouths, their breath meet.

Michael strokes his good, right hand between them and slowly starts to stroke their dicks together. No hurry or urgency, with the same slow, mindful touch. Alex is wrapped around Michael’s body, every inch of skin that can be pressed together, is. Eventually, Alex gasps his orgasm into Michael’s mouth. A few minutes later Michael hums and trembles through his own pleasure, Alex nipping at Michael’s lower lip to add a bit of sting.

Alex’s skin buzzes electrified, energised, “that was nice.” He mumbles into Michaels mouth as Michael hums his agreement.

Alex releases his hold on Michael’s shoulders and lets his body flop down on to the bed. Keeping his legs wrapped round Michael’s waist as he stretches lazily, body shivering as his muscles and bones realign and settle. Michael hoists Alex’s ass up, off his knees, to slip out from under him and follows him down with his mouth, nuzzling at his neck, kissing, sucking on his earlobes.

~~~~~~~~~~

He was both; planning to not be seen by anyone but Michael during his time in Roswell, but also realistic. He couldn’t spend a week in Michael’s trailer. He’d end up overdosing on sex or more likely, killing Michael. He had no internet, said he was off the grid, but fuck that shit. Alex was going to set him up while he was here. If he could set up a satellite dish and a transmitter for a wireless router in the middle of an Iraqi desert then he can do it in the New Mexico desert in his sleep.

Michael has taken their laundry to Isobel’s and Alex had gone for groceries in the supermarket furthest from town. But they didn’t have the good quality silicone lube he was looking for. So, that’s why he’s at Walgreens, feeling the hairs on his arms stand and his shoulders shift with the awareness that someone is watching him. He feels himself thrill with vindictive spite as he turns down the sexual health aisle, fills his basket with condoms and grabs 2 bottles of Gun Oil lube as well.

As he places his shopping on to the back seat of his rental car. He contemplates having this conversation at the Crashdown or Bean Me Up but ultimately decides that this is not a topic for public consumption.

He drives West, past Sanders and out towards the Foster’s Ranch. But turns off road before he gets there, down a dirt road leading nowhere until he’s out of site of the main road. The dust that billows out on the road behind him tells him that Isobel Evans followed him. Brave of her. She’s by herself, without Max. He wonders what her superpowers might be that she has so much courage to do this by herself. Other than the forgetting thing… shit.

He steps out of his rental 4x4 and waits for her car door to slam behind her as she walks towards him with furious confidence. He waits for her to speak.

“How did you know? Did he tell you? Did he break his promise?”

Alex frowns. “I may only be number 3 on the list of people who can begin to understand Michael Guerin but I know he doesn’t break his promises.”

She stands in front of him, arms crossed, foot tapping like a caricature for impatience.

“Firstly, you are not subtle. Secondly, I am a trained soldier in the US air force. Lastly, I’ve just legitimately been told aliens are a thing because my high school boyfriend and I spontaneously evolved a unexplainable psychic connection that tears us across space and time, spiritually carrying us across fucking oceans and continents whenever we feel any heightened emotions and you think I wasn’t with him during that entire fucking conversation?”

“I…”

“Well, not all of it,” Alex corrects, “I have a feeling getting lectured by Max Evans about being irresponsible and stupid is Michael’s idea of what he would suffer in Dante’s ninth circle of hell.”

“Shit!” Isobel walks toward him, posture softening and seemingly feeling less threatened. “Max, can be a little sanctimonious and dogmatic.”

“No, shit!”

Alex turns towards the back of the truck and lowers the tailgate so they can both sit. Isobel follows him and slowly lowers her body to sit beside him. He waits for her to interrupt the silence.

“Do you have a theory about why this is happening to you both?” She side-eyes him, while he contemplates how to answer.

“I think, as Michael said, you three are the variables. If this has ever happened to anyone human before it would be somewhere on the internet, whether it was the romantic journaling of a teenaged Myspace, a legitimate news source or one of those weird conspiracy blogsites. Right?”

Isobel frowns but nods in agreement.

Alex forges on. “Ideally we need to talk about it with the three of you because we can’t know what Michael and I did that has been different from whatever you and Max have ever done.”

Isobel crosses her arms again, informing Alex that the aversion to talking and sharing on all sides is going to make things difficult. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if you need to know why this happened so you and Max can avoid it or… make it happen in the future… we need to understand why it happened for me and Michael.”

“How can you not know?”

Alex blinks at her, “How am I supposed to know?’ he bites back. “We’re all in the dark here. We’re all confused. Nobody did anything on purpose. And you three know fuck all about your origins. If this was a Navajo thing, at least I could drive to the Res and ask the elders. But you guys are stranded intergalactic orphans, how do you think we should figure this out? Who should we talk to?” By the end his vehemence has built up and when Isobel doesn’t reply he takes a moment to take a couple of breaths, to make sure his heartrate doesn’t speed over the limit. He stares at the desert at his feet.

“Look,” Alex forces his calm tone. “All this is guess work. Michael and I are both logical, analytical people, you think we haven’t asked ourselves questions to see if we could pin point something?”

“What kind of questions?” The curiosity in Isobel’s tone forces Alex to look up.

He is so very reluctant to share. At the end of the day, his and Michael’s speculation is rather revealing and oddly intimate, when faced with the idea they need to talk about it with a third party. “Uhhhh, sex and feelings stuff, I suppose.”

Isobel’s expression turns to one of blatant dissatisfaction with his response. “Seriously? Are you adults?”

Alex groans and collapses back into the truck bed, legs swinging over the edge. Isobel, does not follow him down. Instead she lifts her legs on to the truck bed, sits cross legged, elbows on her thighs, head in her hands and stares down at him. Studies him.

“I didn’t know you and Michael were a thing.” She sounds very disappointed with that reality. “I thought I knew my brothers, both of them. Better than anyone in the world. And… when Michael started telling us about you… about what was happening to you both. All I could think was, how could I not know? It’s making me rethink other things…” she drifts off in thought.

Alex lets her stay in her silence. Eventually she refocuses on Alex and smiles.

“So… What kind of questions?”

Alex groans again, “Fuck! If I tell you, do you think it would mean I could avoid telling and asking Max? That’s the only way this conversation is happening now. I definitely won’t do this twice.”

Isobel sobers up, “As mentioned, it seems I know less about my brothers than I thought. I wouldn’t want to mislead you.”

Silence creeps up on them again.

“Maybe…” Isobel goes back to studying him, frowns and, “What if Michael was here?”

“He’s doing laundry.”

Isobel shakes her head, “No, what if you both… did your thing. If you ‘called him’.” She goes so far as to gesture the quotation marks with her fingers.

“No!” Alex replies firmly, “Not a show monkey.”

“What’s it like, then?”

Alex hums and lifts his feet on to the tail gate so they’re not swinging free and straining his back. The bed of Michael’s truck has a waterproof bag full of blankets. But this is a rental and the truck bed is uncomfortable but there’s nothing to be done about it.

“It’s weird.” Alex states, he’s obviously never talked about it before with anyone. Hell, they’ve barely talked about it with each other. It’s as if this connection has left something so open between them that words have become unnecessary. An illusion, most definitely, they’ll have to break the habit on counting on it to inform the other of their upsets. Because it works when they are far apart but when they are together, they need to learn to use actual words.

“At the beginning, I thought I was just homesick. You know? Imagining I was home in Roswell with Michael. It’s the safest I’ve ever felt. In retrospect, everything was so detailed, not a fuzzy memory. Why would I keep track of when Michael changed the sheets on his bed?”

Isobel interrupts, “You can use this for sex?” She sounds intrigued.

“No!” Alex laughs then the sound fades into the desert. “No,” he says more seriously, “Michael was having nightmares.” He lets that statement sit out for a moment for Isobel to properly absorb it, before continuing.

“It started getting noticeably weird when I started to bring Michael to me, in Iraq. I have never ever thought of Michael in conjunction with any aspect of my service. Never! Just the thought of Michael on a military base, freaks me out and that was before, Aliens!” Alex shivers, “But, yeah, when Michael started appearing on base, that was undeniably not normal.”

“Also, we never touched at the beginning. So, when we started approaching each other and interacting, then talking… I stopped thinking I had gone legitimately crazy. Or, I suppose, I accepted that I was crazy, but this wasn’t affecting my life negatively and it was the kind of crazy I could embrace and accept that it was bringing me comfort… I don’t know. But yeah once bullets actually started dodging me and I had Michael freaking out in the middle of a war zone then… all bets were off.”

“I didn’t know you could touch each other.”

“We can’t really. It’s not touching. Like we’re not actually, physically there so we can’t touch. It’s a presence first, like a shiver in your spine when someone’s staring at you in a public space.” Alex could now make that comparison from recent experience. “Or you think of someone and the phone rings and it’s them. Like a sixth sense. It’s a knowing. But I think our brains get confused. My eyes see Michael and my brain tells my fingertips that he’s there and that my fingertips should be touching something and my fingertips say okay, I can feel that. And my brain thinks, great there it is,” he shrugs.

Isobel lets the silence reign for a while. “I think I’m missing out. Max has an epic love; Michael has an epic love… where’s mine?”

Alex’s heart skips a beat and he holds in his next inhale to repress his reaction to those words. ‘ _Epic Love!’_ Is he? Is he in _Epic Love_ with Michael? Is Michael in _Epic Love_ with him? Is that why this is happening between them? Is that what they’ve both been thinking but always avoid speaking it out loud?

Alex clears his throat and sits up to sit beside Isobel. “We probably need to talk about it, all four of us. So that we can understand how and why?” Isobel looks at him, confused. “Why this happened to Michael and not Max or you?

“You mean I’ve had sex, Max has had feelings, but Michael is the only one who’s had sex _and feelings_ at the same time for the same person?”

Alex avoids meeting her eyes. What a simplistic formula! Is that the simple explanation to this entire thing?

“Well?”

“I don’t think you want me to ask if Max is a virgin?” He avoids.

“Don’t be obtuse. I’m asking if you love my brother, Alex?”

Alex stares out into the desert and is silent for a long time, before he decides how to reply.

“That’s not for you, Isobel.” He chooses gently.

“What does that mean?”

“This doesn’t belong to you. You are not entitled to know.”

“Of course, I am, he’s my brother.” She declares, “And this could happen to me, so I have a right to know how.” She corrects, “we have a right to know.”

“No.” Alex stands his ground, “This is mine. And this is Michael’s. And this is ours.”

Isobel stares at him, studying him and finally concludes, “fine, I’ll ask Michael then.”

“You do you.” Alex doubts Michael will go out of his way to meet with Isobel to have this conversation. He doubts he’ll tolerate having it over the phone and Alex plans not to let him out of bed without him so… it is unlikely Isobel will have the opportunity.

Alex begins to shuffle off the truck bed.

“Where are you going?” Isobel stares after him.

“We’re done here, until all of us meet. There’s no real reason to continue a conversation we’ll have to repeat anyway. And I’m meeting Michael for lunch at the Airstream.”

Isobel follows him off the truck. “Can’t you convince him to move to a normal place?”

Alex turns back to face her confused, “Why would I do that? He’s fine.”

“It’s a hovel,” she justifies.

“The bed is a bit small but he likes it. It’s airtight, warm, kitchen works, he has space to work and he can take it with him where ever he wants. It’s his first home, he owns it outright. It’s more than most people can claim. For the first time in his life he has a home and no one can take it away from him. Why would I do that?”

“I just assumed… you would prefer…” She trails off.

“I’m a deployed soldier, how Michael wants to live is not up to me. He loves the desert. He probably loves being far away from people and surrounded by the desert and the sky out here.” Alex turns back and opens the truck door, before quickly turning back, “Isobel, you want to talk about things with Michael. You do it. I am not a messenger. Let us know when you want to meet with us.”

He climbs in, and drives back towards Michael.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in the middle of writing the last chapter of this part of the story... before I start to really put my mind towards deciding whether the bits and pieces in the future are enough to make a book 2


	5. Chapter 5

Alex is putting away the groceries when he hears Michael pulling up in his truck. He steps into the trailer and drags a hand over Alex’s ass as he passes between him and the desk with a bag full of laundry. He places it on the bed, and pulls out the pile of folded laundry, which he starts putting away in the trailer’s storage. Alex leans back on the kitchen counter as he watches him. 

“What are we making for lunch?”

Michael glances at him. “I’m not sure I can trust a soldier to cook me food.”

Alex smirks back, “You definitely shouldn’t. But you trusted me to do the shopping.”

Michael finishes putting things away and steps over to stand in front of Alex, looping his arms around his hips pressing them together, ducking down to press his mouth along Alex’s neck. “You’re a soldier, good at following instructions, right? Follow a shopping list?”

“Fuck, Michael.” Alex pushes back and presses Michael against the opposite counter reaching for his head and pulling him in to meet his mouth, desperately.

Michael indulges him for a moment, letting him think they’re about to head towards getting naked but he pulls away and pushes Alex to the side, leaving him gaping.

“I’ll make pasta and sauce.” He pulls out an onion and garlic, a tin of tomatoes and a chopping board. Grabs a pot, which he fills with water and puts to boil.

“Hey?”

Michael meets his eyes, smirking. “Just because you’re a repressed, closeted, sexually frustrated soldier doesn’t mean I am. I get laid, regularly, thank you very much. And I’m hungry.”

Alex feels like curling up into himself. “Don’t be a dick.”

His response sits between them and Michael does not engage with it. Eventually, Alex untenses and decides to seat himself in the green pleather stool by Michael’s work station to watch him make lunch.

Michael gets things chopped and the sauce simmering and the pasta into the boiling water and turns to face him, arms crossed. “You signed up for another four years of this shit. I did not sign up for them with you.”

“I know.”

“DADT is going to be repealed soon. But you’re always going to be somewhere else.”

“I know, Michael. I know.” Alex leans his head back on the cabinets overhead, eyes closed in surrender.

But Michael moves towards him, reaches out, runs his fingers over his throat then circles his neck and pulls his head back so their eyes meet.

“Does it bother you? That I’ve… that I’ll…?”

Alex doesn’t look away from him. “No. I want you to be free. You deserve to be touched, to enjoy everything you want to reach out for. You know I want only good things for you. Even when I’m not here.”

“You deserve those things too, Alex.”

“I’m always gone and I… I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to be loved by other people.”

Michael shakes his head in denial. “It’s not love, Alex. It’s just… sex. I don’t… not everything needs to mean something.”

Alex barely whispers, “Do we mean something? Could this be… is that why this is happening between us? A… a feelings thing?”

Michael bites back, “is it a requited feelings thing?”

They are both silent, avoiding confronting their personal realities, definitely deciding not to speak them aloud but not looking away from each other, until they realise neither of them will admit to anything more.

Alex finally asks, “Have Max and Isobel ever…?”

“What? Had sex with feelings? Fuck, if I know. We’ve never talked about it. We don’t really talk about…”

“Sex?”

“Things that mean anything. That don’t directly… like involve our powers or pods or alien stuff.”

“That’s shit, Michael. They’re supposed to be your family. I want you to have a family.”

He hooks his arms around Michaels neck and pulls him in.

“Sometimes I do.” Michael tries to reassure him but doesn’t realise how dismally he fails at it.

“We need to face a few facts here.” Alex says finally.

“Well, you have 8 minutes, while the pasta cooks.” Michael pulls and turns away to stir the sauce.

“We are the worst possible people to… not fuck this up. We’re going to fuck this up.” He states.

“Alex, this is the most unfucked up thing I’ve ever done. And I don’t know how it happened. And I didn’t even do it on purpose.”

Alex forges ahead, “neither of us know what an even vaguely healthy relationship looks like outside of a hallmark holiday movie. We haven’t experienced one, or even seen one in any adult we’ve ever known. The opposite. We have to admit to a few things…. A few…. Triggers. We need to be healthy about this. As much as we can. We need to be honest with each other.

“We’re both fucking damaged, Alex.”

“Don’t…”

Michael interrupts. “We are _both_ victims of persistent childhood abuse.”

“I…” Alex shakes his head in denial.

“Are you going to start lying to me so soon soldier?”

“No… I don’t ever want to lie to you, Michael.”

“So, don’t!”

“There’s things I can’t tell you.”

“That’s different.” Michael states, “Not lying, doesn’t mean no secrets.”

“We have no support, but each other, Michael and I’m in a fucking war zone on another fucking continent. Might as well still be on different planets.”

Michael scoffs, grabs the pasta, drains it into the sink and pours the pasta into the simmering sauce to toss it.

Alex continues, “we don’t even know if this shit only works for strong negative emotions… or all kinds of emotions. Because we both just don’t have that many positive emotional moments in our lives to test.”

“That’s just depressing.”

Michael pulls bowls out from the cupboards above his head and divides the pasta between them. He grabs cutlery and starts to head towards the door. “Grab beers out of the fridge.”

Alex does and follows him out to the chairs outside. It’s hot, but under the shade Michael has set up, it’s tolerable with good company. They dig in, it’s good and Alex tells Michael so, although he shrugs off the compliment.

“I dare you to jerk off thinking about me very positively when you get back to your fucking desert.” He smirks, forking some pasta into his mouth. “For research purposes…”

Alex decides to take it further, “you shouldn’t dare me to do anything. I’m going to be in Europe for 6 months. Only a few hours from Berlin, Paris, Zurich… and weekends to do whatever I want. To go to all the night clubs I want and to do all the liberal, European gay sex I want.”

Michael shrugs, relaxed, “I get variety 360 days a year. I can’t begrudge you 6 months of fun out of the next 4 years you’ll be stuck under the military’s thumb.”

They managed to spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying each other. Michael had flown the empty plates into the trailer and stalked over to kneel over Alex’s lap. He kisses him until they throw their shirts to the ground and their lips are numb.

When they eventually untangle themselves, Michael glances at his phone and finds Isobel and Max planning to meet in their group chat. They make themselves presentable and Michael drives them out to a desert to meet with his siblings.

Max and Isobel seem to have driven out together in Isobel’s car. Max is not in uniform, which Alex is relieved by. Isobel is chatting away at him, relaxed, sitting on the hood of her car, high heels resting on the bumper. But Max is focused on their arrival, eyes following Alex as he approaches, studying him.

“It’s been a while, Max.” Alex reaches out to shake his hand. Then smiles at Isobel.

Michael focuses on the lack of greeting. “And Isobel?”

Alex smirks, “It’s been a few hours since I last saw, Isobel.” He shrugs, “didn’t mention it, we were busy. Isobel and I didn’t talk about anything that we don’t also need to repeat now anyway.”

Max interjects, “It has been a while. I was expecting it to be longer… if at all.”

Isobel reacts the strongest of them all and doesn’t hide her horror at his words. “Max, why would you say that?”

“What… I just meant that I didn’t think Alex’s and Michael’s thing, was that significant.”

That is not what he had meant. 

Michael seems to keep his silence and Isobel reacts on his behalf. “So, you’re not still hung up on Liz Ortecho? Was that also not significant?”

“That’s different.”

“Why?” Isobel asks.

“It just is. I loved Liz for years. I’ve never stopped.”

Alex interjects, confused. “You guys barely even dated, hardly ever talked, you kinda kissed and you definitely didn’t have sex.”

“How would you know any of that?” Max can’t hold back his surprise.

“Liz was my best friend in high school. I probably know more about Maria’s and Liz’s orgasms than I do about my own.” Alex says it jokingly, trying to alleviate the mood. Max is contributing an unwelcome weight of antagonism to this whole situation.

Michael laughs out and knocks his shoulder, “I didn’t know you had that much insider hetero sexual knowledge. Poor you.”

“You’re pining for Liz.’ Isobel interjects, “You can’t love her. You never really got the chance to know her. Maybe if you’d had the chance it would have been amazing. But you can’t compare the potential of your relationship with the reality of this one.” Max tries to interrupt but Isobel doesn’t let him. “I’m sorry Max, but you don’t get to judge what is or is not significant. You and Michael have barely spent any time together since high school. Why would you pretend to know anything about it?”

Max is silent.

“So that clears that up.” Isobel says finally, with forced enthusiasm. “Sex with feelings.”

“I don’t think that’s really conclusive evidence,” Michael frowns.

“Well, I doubt you and Alex managed to get over your repressed emotions and pathological aversion to talking about your feelings, in the hours since I last talked to Alex.” Isobel says pointedly. “So that’s what we’ve got.”

Michael bobs his head in agreement, “Yep, it’s a categorical indication that we still don’t know anything, congratulations.” He says it with joking enthusiasm like he’s proclaiming a birth announcement.

His nerdy scientific humour, gives Alex indigestion and he can’t help but watch as Michael ducks his head to avoid meeting Isobel’s obvious amused, judgmental scowl.

“Let’s talk about the aliens in the desert.” Michael contributes to deflect from the feelings talk.

Max seems to restore himself, with the change of topic.

“Michael, probably told you that I didn’t agree with him telling you about us?”

“I guessed, or Michael told me. What does it matter, it’s done already. We’re here about how we should move on going forward.”

“Well, then you know I think it was irresponsible to share this secret. All three of us agreed that we would never tell anyone. And now you know. And you’re in the military. You’re my idea of worst-case scenario. We really need to make you understand how serious it is to keep this secret…”

“Max, please shut up!” Alex interrupts him before he can really set off on the lecturing.

Max looks shocked that anyone would speak like that with him. “What? I mean, dude, I’m trying to help you understand…”

“ _Help_ _me understand?”_ Alex repeats slowly. He shakes his head and revaluates how he wants to confront Max’s posturing. “Please stop talking down to me like I’m still a child and don’t know how to behave. Stop talking to me like you talk to Michael. Fuck, while I’m at it. Stop talking to Michael the way you talk to Michael. It’s offensive. And you’re a dick when you do it.” ~~~~

Max raises his hands up to try and calm Alex down. Alex thinks he’s perfectly calm and rolls his eyes at Michael, who’s mouth curves up in a half smile.

“We need to talk about this rationally.” Max placates, “we need to analyse the situation. I just want you to understand how serious…”

“Do you want me to help you understand something, Max, since we’re talking about secrets,” Alex interrupts again. “We should also talk about how shit you three are at keeping them. You legitimately sent a text _Alien Powwow_ to an unencrypted group chat?”

Isobel, looks puzzled but worried.

“First, don’t use Powwow, its fucking offensive. Secondly, this isn’t the eighties. I’m going to be a Cyber Security Specialist for the US Air Force. I could probably hack your phones using the Wi-Fi in Michael’s Airstream and he doesn’t have any. None of you can begin to understand how much information the intelligence services in this country has been gathering from civilians since 9/11. They can see everything, hear everything, record everything. And they _are_ doing that! So that is actually something important that I can help you understand. I would recommend you take _that_ seriously.”

That seems to shut Max up for a moment.

Alex gentles the tone of his voice, “I understand what it means to keep a secret, Max. I really don’t need you to explain it to me. If you want to tell me about the fears you have then we can talk about them and try and brainstorm solutions and see how to avoid those specific concerns. But I don’t need you to explain to me that this is serious, a secret, or that your lives would truly be at risk if anyone finds out about this. I know!”

Michael steps forward and curves an arm around Alex’s waist. Alex’s first reaction is to tense and shrug him off but after the first flash of fear of Michael touching him in public, he feels an overwhelming sense of comfort and he settles himself into Michael’s side.

“Why did we meet out here?” Michael asks. “Couldn’t we have gone to your place and sat down and had some food and beer?”

Max has not taken well to Alex’s continuous displays of authority; his fists are clenched at his side. “I don’t know him and I don’t trust him. Just because you do, it doesn’t mean I have to invite him to my house.”

Michael stills at Alex’s side. Alex reacts in the exact opposite way, tensing for a fight. But Michael holds him back.

Isobel turns to Max, shocked. “Max? Why would you say that?” She steps away from him. “Why are you being such a dick? Do we need to have a private conversation?”

She puts an odd emphasis into her speech patter. Max shakes his head.

“Can we talk about this? It’s why we’re here?” She finally adds and turns to stand between them.

“Yeah, Michael, let’s talk! Why does Alex know about us? You said you wouldn’t tell him about Isobel and me.”

Michael takes a moment to choose his words. Alex swears Max would be tapping his foot impatiently, if he were an old lady in real life.

“Well… Alex is right, Max. You’re kind of a dick to me sometimes.” He states slowly. “And the reason we’re all here having this uncomfortable conversation at the moment, is that sometimes, when I find myself in a shitty situation Alex shares it with me.” He says sarcastically.

“So?”

“And Max, you’re around for some of those shitty moments. You might even say that sometimes you are the cause.” He finishes.

When Max does not respond.

Alex decides to turn the conversation around. “What are your powers?”

Isobel is eager to answer and change the topic. “You know Michael’s. Mine is sort of mental manipulation and telepathy. Max can heal and manipulates electricity.”

Alex frowns, “Wait, are you telepathic with anyone, even humans?”

“I can manipulate humans, but I’ve never tried to communicate with them. That would be the opposite of keeping a secret,” Isobel points out, eyebrow raised. “I can talk to Max and sometimes with Michael, if he feels like letting me in.”

“Can Max and Michael communicate without you acting like a bridge?”

“We could always talk to each other; from the moment we were ‘born’. I think it’s why we took so long to speak. We didn’t need to. The only people we wanted to be able to communicate with, was us. It wasn’t until we’d been adopted, after about 7 months that we started speaking with our parents. I suppose we decided we wanted to be able to talk to our parents at some point.”

Alex’s brain comes slowly to a whirring stop and looks at Michael.

Michael frowns at her, “‘we’ nothing Isobel. Where am I, in this ‘we’?”

Isobel winces, “Sorry, I meant…”

“I know what you fucking meant.” Michael takes a settling breath. “I was talking about 3 or four weeks after Isobel and Max disappeared. Had to learn to ask when they were coming back, didn’t I? As you can imagine the responses were unsatisfactory.”

Max finally starts to speak in the slow careful way that indicates repeated family discourse, “It’s not our fault that…”

Alex interrupts, “Hey, Max?” Max clenches his jaw. “Sometimes things are not about you. No one here is blaming 7-year old’s for getting split up by the shitty foster system in the good ole state of New Mexico.” Alex knows he’s pushing it with Max, but the guy is pissing him off. “In moments like this; the most constructive thing you can say is, ‘I’m sorry that happened to you.’ Fault doesn’t come into it. But it still happened… to Michael and he’s allowed to be affected by it. Without it being about you.”

He lets his statement sit in the open for a while.

“Moving on. How did your powers manifest the first time? How do you know your limits? If Max can heal and do electrics, how do you know you guys can’t do other things? That you don’t have a second or even a third power? Have you tried? Do you practice? Has anything else, strange ever happened?”

“Hey, Alex, slow down. Let’s sit for this interrogation.” Michael lowers the tail of his truck and they both move to sit down. Facing Isobel, who’s gone back to sit on the hood of her car and Max who’s propping up the driver’s side, like it needs his physical support or it would collapse.

Isobel and Michael end up enjoying going backwards and forth contributing to the stockpile of alien knowledge that Alex is starting to accumulate. The outside perspective…. and actual conversation about it seems to stimulate their own curiosity. It seems that the status quo had always and so zealously been hide, hide, hide that they had never really explored it together. Only in the privacy of their own lives.

They’d never really tested their own limits. Each of their powers had seemingly manifested by themselves, they’d never known how to explore the possibility of finding if they had access to any others. The question was how can you check to see if you can do something, without being able to even begin to fathom what it might be. The possibilities were endless. Isobel said they might as well list all the Marvel and DC superhero powers and test them out one by one, and she was right.

Michael was curious to know if powers were innate or if they manifested due to need; could they start a camp fire, or conjure water in the desert if the need arose. Isobel wanted to try and find a power that could manifest physically and Max, didn’t think it was a good idea because if he used his powers, he tended to blow things up.

By the end of the conversation Max had begun to participate more. He seems to have let go of some of the resentment he had for Alex asserting his boundaries. But as they are leaving, he can’t seem to stop himself from shouting after them.

“Before you were here, Michael was allowed to speak when the three of us had group alien convos.”

Alex stops and turns back to Max, while Michael firmly pulls on his hand to get him to walk away and leave.

“Was he? That’s odd. Before I was physically present for this wonderful conversation, I witnessed 3 or 4 others and I never heard him say a word. It’s always either you or you and Isobel, lecturing at Michael. But now Michael has me. I hope that makes things more balanced in the future.

He lets Michael pull him away and they leave Max behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday, I had the worst ever experience landing on a short haul flight. A massive storm at our arrival airport, more than an hour bouncing and hovering over and under the cloud line, three attempts at landing that were called off at the last minute, passengers being sick... all I could think was; in the unlikely event that we crash and die the rest of this story will never be posted up to AO3. It will remain finished on my laptop forever and unfinished on the archive.  
> I suppose this is why having fandom friends is useful... so they can clear out search history and porny musings and then finish publishing your fic when you're in the middle of it...


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for all the sex....  
> I obviously enjoy writing it along side the Alex is annoyed at Max...

Alex waits in the truck while Michael goes to the Crashdown to pick up an order for dinner. When he ducks into the driver’s seat, two large bags with the Crashdown logo in his hands, the nostalgia and sadness hit Alex in the sternum. The smell takes him back to his adolescence and being with Maria and Liz and Rosa… who’s dead. He hasn’t let himself think about it in such a long time. Poor Arturo. He gets lost in his memories and barely realizes they stop until he hears the sound of Michael’s door slamming shut.

“Hey Private, you coming?” Michael yells over his shoulder as he sits down next to the grill to unpack their food.

Alex takes his time to follow him. Taking the time to disconnect from the past before he grabs a chair and drags it towards Michael so they can sit in front of one another. Michael hand’s him his food and they settle back in silence. When the sun starts to really set below the horizon Michael flickers on the string lights overhead.

They’re finishing when Alex finally breaks the silence. “I’m sorry.”

Michael meets his gaze full on. “What about?”

“I let Max rile me up.”

Michael leans his head back on the head rest and studies him in the dim light. “Did you?”

“It might have been more productive to let him…”

Michael interrupts, “Help you understand? Boss you around? Throw his self-importance and entitlement at us? Command?” Michael smirks, “Underestimate you, like he always does with me? It would have been a waste of time.”

“Has he always been like that?”

Michael takes his time to respond and does it soberly. “Not always. He changed after graduation. When we were growing up, there were always elements of trying to boss us around. But Isobel usually ignored him and did whatever she wanted.”

“And you didn’t?”

It takes such a long time for Michael to answer, “I wanted them to like me.”

Alex’s heart shatters for him.

He moves slowly, standing and stepping towards him. To kneel over him. He is deliberate in his actions, curling his hand around Michael’s biceps, then around his neck pulling him forwards until Michael’s forehead rests on his shoulder and Alex can embrace him. It takes a minute before Michael wraps his own arms around Alex’s waist firmly.

They breath together.

“I’ve never had anyone like you, before.” Michael says into his skin.

Alex doesn’t let him go.

When Michael eventually loosens his grip on his waist. Alex stands and reaches a hand out to Michael, who stares at him, face expressionless. “Come to bed. I want to take you apart.”

Michael lets himself be pulled up and pulled towards the Airstream.

Alex swings the door open for Michael, following him up the stairs, closing and locking it behind them. He gently guides Michael forward, hand on the curve of his spine. When they reach the bedside Michael reaches immediately to start removing his own clothes but Alex tugs his hands down and pulls him round to face him.

Michael arches an eyebrow in silent question.

“Let me.” Alex reaches for him, hands curling round his neck tugging him forward and their mouths meet. He has every intention of taking this slow, of taking his time to make Michael feel him, feel his love and attention.

Michael is so free with sex, enjoys it, he likes fucking and being fucked, to touch and to be touched. At least that’s what Alex feels when they are together. He can’t be sure what Michael is like with other people. But Michael always has so much energy, he’s always leading the charge with Alex, enthusiastically wanting and craving and choosing and making the decisions.

Alex takes the time to kiss him now; his lips, his mouth, the arch of his nose, he scuffs their unshaved cheeks together, kissing up his jaw, sucks at the pulse un his neck before sweeping back to take his mouth again. Michael allows it for a moment before his eagerness tempts him to try and pull up at Alex’s shirt.

Alex pulls away, sweeping his thumb gently over the delicate skin under Michael’s eye. “You know, that in the long list of things we still need to do together, I’ve never undressed you.”

Michael lets his hands drop to his side. Alex presses his lips against his, in recognition of his compliance, though it doesn’t last long as Michael deepens the kiss and tries turning them to push Alex on to the bed. Alex pulls away and takes his own shirt off, distracting Michael with his own naked torso, which he is immediately drawn to, running his hands over the skin of Alex’s abdomen, chest, over his shoulders, down his back. Alex’s lets himself savour the moment, Michael’s attention and Michael’s touch.

But eventually he gets back on track, undressing Michael his only mission. “Would you let me?” He asks, as he brushes his fingers along the skin between Michael’s shirt and his pants. Wordlessly, Michael raises his arms and lets Alex remove his t-shirt.

Alex presses his lips against his collar bone and strokes over Michael’s nipples with his thumbs. Michael’s breath hitches and Alex smiles in response, tempted back to press his lips against Michael’s mouth. He moves slow, unhurried, purposefully and asks permission.

“Can I?” His fingers press against the buckle of Michael’s belt.

“Would you?” His hands curl around his calves as he asks Michael to raise each foot so Alex can remove his boots, socks and jeans.

He remains on his knees and presses his face against Michael’s briefs, into the crook of his hip. Michael runs fingers through his hair, still military short. 

“Do you want me to?” He runs his nose along the hard line of Michael’s hard dick and spreads his hands over Michael’s glutes, fingers running over the stretched fabric covering the valley between his ass cheeks. He sucks through the fabric, kneeling up, pressing his open mouth up along, until he reaches the tip and then drags the cotton down until he’s sucking on the naked head of Michael’s dick.

He brings his hands back to Michael’s ass; fingers dipping between to circle and press and stroke on the furled muscle. He still sucks gently on the head, until he has a taste of a bit of the salty flavour of Michael’s come. He pulls back, hands stilling and looks up at Michael.

“Will you?” The gentle pressure on his hips, guiding Michael to turn to face the bed.

Alex stands, “can you float a condom over?” He asks, not sure where he keeps them and he hopes Michael will be too blissed out to be able to do it later.

Michael turns to look at him over his shoulder, “If you take your fucking pants off, Alex.”

He smirks in the dark, “Negotiating?” A condom slaps him on the chest and he catches it as it falls, and throws it on the bed beside the lube he left there earlier that day. He quickly kicks off his shoes and pulls pants and underwear, toeing his socks off kicking it all in a pile to the side. “Happy?”

Michael snorts but leans his whole naked body back until he’s pressed along Alex’s naked front and sighs. Alex stills and lets his arms circle Michael’s waist and holds him there for a moment, accepting Michael’s need to be held. Eventually though, he drifts his hand down Michael’s belly and his fingers dance lightly over the length of his dick. He waits until Michael’s hips thrust into his hand before moving things along.

He grabs the Gun Oil; great for intense, slow, long sex, doesn’t dry out, which is good because Alex plans to linger, to draw this out until Michael comes to pieces. He puts some onto his fingers and brings his hand between Michael’s ass cheeks.

“Michael,” Alex strokes his cheek down the side of Michael’s head, his voice stays soft and questioning. “Do you want to put your foot on the bed so I can finger you open for me?” 

Michael huffs and does so. “Asking me yes or no questions when you know I’ll always say yes, is stupid.” He leans his head back to rest on Alex’s shoulder.

Alex presses one slick finger just inside Michael’s sphincter and presses around the sides, softening the firm muscle. “I don’t know if your answer will always be yes.” The fingers that aren’t working on Michael’s asshole sweeps up to stroke over Michael’s throat.

“It’s always yes for you. Always.” Michael turns his head, searching for Alex’s lips and he gasps into his mouth as Alex breeches him with a second finger. He arches his ass back trying to press down but Alex wants him to be strung out with waiting, pulls back.

Michael stills. “Please?”

Alex kisses him, fingers stroking over his throat and also pressing firmly into Michael until he’s gently tapping on his prostate and making him gasp out.

“Like that?”

He just moans and Alex drags the hand at his throat down to finger his nipples as he gently, gently taps on his prostate. “I wish I could always have you like this.” He keeps his hand moving down his torso, stroking over Michael’s abdomen until he’s holding his cock in his hand, lightly playing with the head, spreading out the come that is starting to leak.

“You know you could.” Michael breathes out, panting.

Alex kisses him, pressing his tongue into Michael’s mouth. Michael arches back, reaching with his arms over his head to grasp at Alex and hold Alex’s mouth to his. Alex presses his third finger inside him and starts stroking Michael’s dick lightly, his hand is not slick, but with more rhythm. 

He pulls his mouth back a millimetre. “That’s not true yet… but it will be.”

He keeps going until Michael is gasping open mouthed and his body is tensing, muscles quivering and preparing to orgasm, trying to curl inwards, fighting against being as stretched open as he is.

Michael whines, “please?”

“Come for me, so I can fuck you to a second one again.” He presses in firmly, the pads of his fingers massaging insistently from behind and running the tips of the fingers on his cock in to the slit until Michael starts coming into his palm and Alex uses the mess of slick to jerk Michael through the rest of his orgasm.

Michael body trembles in his arms as his muscles shiver with pleasure, Alex holding him through it. But eventually he twists out of Alex’s grip to kneel and falls forward, collapsing on to the bed.

Alex flexes his wrist and watches as Michael turns himself on to his back and stretches out, eyes closed and indulging himself in the humming contentment.

Alex smiles at Michael and places his knees on the bed to crawl between Michael’s legs. “Bad logistical planning, on my part.” He strokes his come covered hand over Michael’s stomach. “Float another condom over? The other one is somewhere underneath you.”

Michael studies him, letting Alex place his hands on his knees and spread his thighs apart. Without a single flicker of emotion, Alex suddenly has a condom slapped against his cheek and then suddenly he’s being pelted with them. He collapses forward between Michael’s legs, on to his belly laughing and bracing his hands over his head to protect himself. He’s a military man and he can’t even begin to attempt to dodge the bombardment of condoms flying at him and around him.

Eventually they slow down and stop and he peaks up at Michael through his arms to see him smiling down at him, smug.

Alex uncurls himself and reaches up to kiss Michael. Alex’s dick is hard, seeing Michael warm and playful and smiling is as much of a turn on as having him stretched out and desperate on his fingers. Michael is warm and satisfied and happy to be distracted by Alex’s lips and tongue. He curls himself around Alex, legs crossed around his hips and arms around his chest as he strokes and scratches at Alex’s back.

But eventually Alex is feeling the edge of the need he has for him, unwraps himself from Michael’s arms, which allows him to sit back on his heels.

He glances around them and finds the lube. He squirts a very generous amount on to his three middle fingers and pushes all three of them swift and steady into Michael’s asshole. Michael is silent, but his fists clench and his head arches back at the sensation. Alex draws his fingers out and spreads the excess lube on his hand on to his own dick. Then he grabs one of the many packages on the mattress, tears it open and rolls the condom down himself.

Michael tightens his legs around Alex, forcing him forwards. He drops with his hands on either side of Michael’s head and bends down to kiss him and nuzzle down at his jaw. “You good?”

Michael places a hand on his shoulder and pushes Alex back to look at him. Alex watches Michael study his face, eyes flickering over him and then the fingers of his broken hand reaches out to reverently stroke his cheek. He nods in response to Alex’s question.

Alex reaches down between them and guides his cock into Michael. He’s relaxed and receptive, wet with lube and Alex presses in, with steady pressure as Michael gasps and clutches at his shoulders, eyelids fluttering. He pauses when his pelvis presses against Michael’s ass and gives him the time he needs to adjust. He presses kisses to his lips and jaw and cheeks until Michael tilts his hips up and Alex translates this into a request for movement.

He’s slow at first, the need to keep their bodies pressed together, restricting his ability to have the leverage to truly fuck his cock into Michael’s body. The rise and fall of his hips, echoing the beat of their mouths moving against each other and their hands stroking and touching each other’s bodies.

The slow rocking of their bodies, is enough to get Michael’s cock hard again pressed between them, his breathless sighs evolving to stuttering instructions and orders for more. Alex pulls away from Michael’s mouth and curls his body down to lick and suck and bite at his nipples. Michael grasping at his hair, using the heels pressed against Alex’s ass to try to encourage him faster.

Alex stops and Michael glares at him. He looks gorgeous and debauched. The hair at his temples starting to darken with sweat. Alex presses a kiss to his knee in appreciation. He reaches for Michael’s legs to untangle them from his waist and holds them up as he kneels back and repositions himself for better leverage. He hooks Michael’s knees over his elbows, rising on to his knees and forcing Michael’s hips up and off the mattress and proceeds to fuck into Michael’s body, hard.

Michael cries out, hands reaching out as if to stop him, then changing direction to push back on the wall behind him to counter leverage and deepen Alex’s thrusts. They are slow and deep and precise. Michael held open and spread out and Alex using the strength and self-discipline the Air Force trained into him to do this for as long as he can, his own need and desire for orgasm, secondary to the need and desire he has to make Michael come apart.

It feels like the air is vibrating between them, energy pulsating with the rhythm of Alex’s cock drawing out and pushing into Michael’s body. It feels like the Airstream is shaking around them and Michael is groaning, his dick weeping. Finally, when Michael is so on edge he can’t stop himself, he reaches down to bring himself to orgasm with a few strokes of his cock.

Alex stills.

“No! Please, fuck no.” Michael pleads, eyes wide and shocked. His hand retreats obediently.

Alex lowers himself and Michael down on to the mattress. With Michael’s knees still hooked over Alex’s elbows, he leans forward to press his mouth to Michael’s mouth. Michael is pinned open like a butterfly, ass spread open, thighs stretched up.

Alex uses the muscles in his legs to rut into Michael, rhythm changing with sharp, urgent, shallow thrusts meant to drive Michael to distraction as Alex drums against his prostate with unyielding insistence. Michael whines with it, mouth open, panting as Alex licks into him and bites, nipping down his neck.

When he comes, it’s silently but behind them something shatters into a million pieces with a blast that’s loud enough to break Alex’s concentration as he lunges forward to protect more of Michael’s body, covering his torso with his own and his head with his arms.

Movement stops, Alex can’t hear anything other than Michael’s shallow, breathless, gasps and his own panting.

“What the fuck was that?” Alex drops Michael’s legs and moves to pull out and turn around but Michael stops him.

“Don’t move.” Michael seems wiped out but manages to hook a foot around Alex’s thigh and prevent him from pulling out. “I just broke something, I…. you made me lose control. Fuck!” He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and laughs out breathless. “God! Fuck, Alex!”

Alex relaxes, dick still hard and pressed into Michael’s asshole. He runs his fingers in the come that coats Michael’s abdomen. “Well, I’m glad it was good for you.” Michael’s stomach contracts and the muscles shiver.

“Fuck!” Michael repeats like it’s the only word he knows, his arms collapsing to his side. But his eyes meet his and scan over him and then Michael purposefully rocks his hips down on to Alex and tightens his hole making Alex feel like he’ll come on the spot.

It’s Alex’s turn to swear.

Before moving to fuck into Michael, to finish riding him to his own orgasm, Alex reaches between them and presses around the muscle surrounding him. “You’ll be sensitive. You sure you’re good?” He holds on to the condom as he pulls his cock back and out and immediately slips his fingers inside to replace his dick, feeling around for the slickness that still lubricates Michael and checking to see if he’ll need more.

Michael arches and cries out gasping, “Fuck it, we both like it like that.” He assures him, while his body can’t seem to decide whether to open up again or pull away. “I want you to finish inside me. Then, fucking, clean me up and let me sleep.”

Alex nods, withdraws his fingers and then watches as his dick pushes back inside Michael.

It won’t take Alex long to come, even the shock of Michael blowing something up hadn’t really managed to calm down his need for him.

Now that he’s not distracted by his own orgasm, his dick lying spent on his abdomen, Michael focuses on Alex. Reaching for him, to pet and pinch his nipples, pulling him down to kiss him, reaching round to dig his nails in to Alex’s ass and encouraging his rhythm, using the well-used muscles to tighten and release on Alex’s cock, intensifying everything, while he gasps and whines into his ear and bites and pulls on Alex’s earlobe. 

When Alex feel himself get close, he wants to have his mouth on Michael’s mouth. He wants to kiss that mouth for the rest of his fucking life. He pounds his hips forward into Michael tight heat and comes gasping out his name, as their lips press together. It’s perfection.

He lets himself fall forward, all his weight in Michael’s body. He is held and stroked and eased through the slowing of his heartbeat and evening of his breathing. For a moment Alex think’s Michael will let him stay here.

A foolish thought. In no time, Michael is pushing and shoving and whining and complaining to get Alex out from inside of him. Alex gathers his energy and complies, pulling back the bare minimum to let his cock pull out from Michael’s body and flops on to his back, Michael inching toward the wall to give him room to layout beside him. Alex reaches blindly off the bed, searching the ground with his fingers for anything that isn’t jeans, to wipe them down.

He grabs one of their t-shirts and draws in energy, hitching up on an elbow to wipe Michael down, with the same attention Michael had done with him, just yesterday night. Cleaning away lube and come and coaxing Michael to spread his legs open a bit with silent kisses against his mouth, so that he can gently wipe him down. Then he uses the t-shirt on himself, pulling his condom off and cleaning himself down, before collapsing into Michael’s side and nuzzling into his neck, until he falls asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Waking up beside Michael is the best thing. They are absolutely fucked out after the first 36 hours together. They’d had a lazy morning, enjoying each other’s presence and being able to touch each other’s skin. Michael is the only one who can get around his kitchen efficiently, or so Alex claims. He’d had the absolute pleasure of watching Michael, without getting out of bed, as he prepares them coffee and omelettes.

It’s such a unique sensation for Alex to have absolutely nothing to do. His time in the Air Force is so regulated, he’s always scheduled and has his days planned out in advance. But the strangest thing is realising that he can love and enjoy every unregulated moment of freedom with Michael at his side.

Michael eventually has to get up. He has a few cars he needs to fix at Sander’s. Even though Alex had offered to go with him, as Alex tried tugging every item of clothing off, while Michael tried getting dressed, Michael had forbidden him. Claiming that Alex would be a distraction, that he would finish faster if Alex wasn’t around.

Alex had gotten up to say goodbye to Michael. Standing in boxers, in the New Mexico desert as he reaches around Michael, tangling his fingers in his hair and kisses the life out of him. Slipping his hands under Michael’s shirt, trying to tempt him back inside playfully. This is the life, both of them 22 years old, careless with their desire out in the desert where no one can see or hear them.

As Michael drives off, Alex decides to sunbathe and lasts about 30 minutes, before he’s bored. He snaps a picture of himself from below his dog tags, chest glistening and skin starting to turn a little red and sends it off to Michael and goes to shower and get dressed.

He’s driving back to the Airstream after having bought the necessary equipment he needs to set Michael up with internet. He hopes it will make Michael’s life easier but also that the easy access will facilitate Michael’s love of learning. Being able to let himself get carried away, deep diving into the various topics that he finds fascinating and if the desire strikes, start to educate himself in a more official capacity. He’s not certain if Michael is really drawn by the need to validate himself in the eyes of society. But Alex would like him to have the opportunity for it, if it’s something he wants.

The fact that Max has the audacity to sit in his New Mexico County Sheriff’s car and turn his siren on as Alex passes him on the highway, on his way back to the Airstream, actually leaves Alex laughing out loud to himself. But he pulls over to the side of the road and waits until Max is tapping on his window to roll it down.

He waits for Max to speak and the silence is long.

“I just wanted to clear the air between us after yesterday…”

Alex interrupts. “You know what I find strange, Max. Setting aside the fact the nobody can control the circumstances surrounding Michael’s horrible childhood. You were adopted by one of the wealthier families in Roswell. Was your privilege so blinding that you never realized Michael was a 17-year-old kid living out of his truck?”

The line of enquiry has left Max dumbstruck.

Alex pushes his door open, forcing Max back, and steps out of the truck.

“Your own fucking brother? Like maybe your parents didn’t give you pocket money, though they did give you both that amazing fucking jeep when you both turned 16. But you and Isobel, you couldn’t even get a weekend job so you could both save money to get Michael extra blankets, a mattress for the truck bed, a tent for when it rained? No? Tried to convince him _not_ to drop out of college… hey, for that one I could have forgiven you for tying him to the passenger seat and driving him there yourself, and begging him to go to UNM and then driving him back if he still said no. The least you could have fucking done!”

“You don’t know what happened to Isobel. You don’t understand…”

“You’re right, Max. For once, this I don’t fucking understand. I will never understand. Because the decisions you made are not decisions I could ever, under any circumstances imagine myself making.”

“I know Michael has a lot of pride. I bet if you’d have offered to help him find a job once he graduated. He would probably have said no, and anyway he likes working in the great outdoors and he likes working with his hands. Even if his brain is probably atrophying with boredom. But he entertains himself, with a mostly finished completely uncredited degree from all the free online classes he takes.”

Max can’t hide his surprise.

“It’s really comfortable for you, to look at Michael and see him failing. It makes you feel better about yourself. About not following your own dreams and having to settle for being a deputy instead of an author or journalist or whatever the fuck you wanted to be when you grew up. Of having a big house instead of a really big house.”

“I really don’t like you, Manes.

“The feeling is mutual, Max. But I hope that I have the opportunity to change my mind about you. But I’ll let you know, because a lot has to change about this situation for me to even begin to respect you, let alone like you. So, think about it.”

Alex gets back into his car and turns the engine on. Then looks back out the open window at Max.

“And one last thing… fuck you, Max. Don’t ever pull me over with flashing lights again. It’s a dickless power move that does not intimidate me and makes you look like a desperate county fucking deputy pushing his weight around. And everyone hates those guys.”

Alex turns back into town. He’s going to buy lunch and take it out to Michael and he’s going to feed him and make out with him against the wreck of the car he’s fixing and he won’t feel any fear. Because he has Michael, his dad is somewhere else, the Air force is faraway and the desert protects them from the prying eyes of the Roswell busybodies. Because with Michael at his side they are both invincible.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only 1 more chapter to go! It should be up on Wednesday.  
> I hope you guys enjoy it!

Alex has managed to convince Michael to go hiking. Go to the Sierra Blanca, in the Mescalero Reservation and then find someplace to eat in Ruidoso or off Route 70. It’s not really a hike, Michael doesn’t have the shoes for it, neither does Alex, but it’s more adventurous than a simple walk.

After how long it takes for Alex to convince Michael to come with him, it surprises him that Michael takes charge. Alex has to hold him back from storming ahead, to keep the walk leisurely instead of motivating himself to meet Michael’s frenetic energy.

There’s no purpose to their trek, they are not trying to reach the end of a trail, or get to the peak, or see one particular look out. Alex just wanted to wander, to be outside, in public, alone with Michael. Somewhere it wasn’t likely either of them would be recognised. Somewhere Alex didn’t have to risk being accused of being a soldier, holding a man’s hand.

Michael’s momentum lasts until he finds a spot off the trail. He sets a blanket out and throws himself down dramatically, tapping the spot beside him until Alex joins him.

“Walking is not my thing,” he explains.

Then Alex is very gracelessly pulled around and shoved down and manipulated telekinetically until he’s exactly where Michael wants him. Underneath him.

“I hope you don’t treat your other dates this way?” Alex grins up at him. “They deserve a bit of finesse.”

“You’re my only date, ever, Alex Manes.” Michael ducks down to kiss him.

Alex pushes him away. “You don’t have to only date me…”

Michael interrupts him, whining “No… Alex…”

Alex holds his hand up to keep him in place and Michael collapses at his side on to his back, with a groan, abandoning his quest to make out with Alex on a mountain side. “Michael, I want you to have… I worry about you.”

“Seriously? You’re the one that will end up in a war zone… but it’s me, you’re worried about.” Michael sighs and stares up at the moving treetops above them.

Alex stays on his back beside him. Knowing he wants to have an important conversation and that it might be easier if they don’t have to look at each other. But he grabs on to Michael’s hand and holds it tight.

“I get to see you fighting with your brother or having nightmares about the horrible things that happened to you growing up… but I worry that your nightmares will start to be about what you see happen to me. What you have to do to keep me safe… I don’t only want to be part of your nightmares.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

Michael doesn’t answer him.

“This thing between us it’s strange. It’s new and unknown. We might trip up on it, but more than anything I want it to give you security and freedom, the same way you make me feel while I’m out there. I don’t want you to live in fear of what may happen to me or to feel stuck in Roswell because you are waiting for me… to feel stuck with each other. Trapped by this immense thing we are to one another. Putting your life on pause until I get back, I want you to want things for yourself.”

Although Michael doesn’t snatch his hand away from Alex, the other one ends up over his eyes, as if he’s shading himself from the sunlight, from Alex’s unwavering faith in him. “I don’t know if I know how to want or worry about all these things, Alex. I worry if I can eat, if I have somewhere to sleep, if Isobel and Max are okay. The only time I ever hoped for more than that… everything went to shit.”

Alex brings Michael’s hand up to press a kiss to it. “Yes, but we were kids then. We’re not that much older now but things have still improved. I don’t depend on my Dad; you have a home and now we have each other. Whether we’re fucking, or dating, or boyfriends, or married, or friends… beyond all that, I want to be your family.”

Michael uncovers his face, while Alex is speaking and turns his head to watch him.

Alex keeps going, “you will be there for me and I want you to know I am here for you. I don’t need to help you dodge bullets but I can help you in other ways. I want you to live a full life while I’m out there. And that doesn’t mean not being a rancher or a mechanic, if that’s what you want.” Alex whispers, “I just don’t think it’s what you really want.”

Michael tugs his hand free. “What I want? What I want is for you not to wear a uniform!” His tone is flat and emotionless. “What I want is not to worry about you getting hurt. What I want is for you not to die in a bullshit war! What I want…”

Alex interrupts him, “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you really want.”

They lay beside each other, silent, not touching.

Eventually, Michael bridges the space between them, fingers brushing over the back of Alex’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says reluctantly.

Alex swallows and says softly, “I know this is not balanced and it’s not fair.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course, it matters.”

They are quiet again. No amount of words will ease the weight that Michael faces every day, once Alex is back playing war. Alex doesn’t know how to even the field.

“We are bound together but with DADT I can’t do anything for you. I can’t be here for you and I can’t support you…”

“Like I would take your money?” Michael interrupts and sits up, annoyed.

“It doesn’t have to be money.” Alex corrects, “it doesn’t only have to be money.” He thinks about this carefully, he’s been thinking about this for weeks. “Do you trust Isobel? With everything?”

Michael can’t stop the confusion on his face. “Yes.”

“I could make her my next of kin, so you’ll be notified if something happens to me. Once DADT is repealed, after that, once I’ve had 6 years of service, I can transfer the benefits of my GI Bill to… a common law spouse.” He hurries to add, “I’d have to commit to 4 more years but…

“No!” Michael turns away from Alex, with his back to him.

“Michael!”

“Never, I will never want anything that means you have to spend a second more in that place than you have to. Alex, I hate it. There is nothing that could be worse for me than you being there.”

“Okay, okay,” Alex placates, rubbing a hand over his spine. “There’s military scholarships… there are normal scholarships and I know you can do anything you set your mind to, Michael. The point is, I don’t want to hold you back, I want to hold you up, always.”

Michael sits with his elbows on his knees, silently. Alex waits for him.

He is hesitant when he starts to speak. “Being a mechanic or rancher isn’t really the only thing I’ve been doing.” He sounds nervous, “I’ve been… I’ve found bits of the spaceship, from the crash, around the ranch. I’ve been re-building it.”

Alex is quiet, mind racing. “You’re… you’re building a spaceship? Like, the plans on your desk are also a physical object?” Michael nods but doesn’t look at him.

Alex calms his panic; he needs to be rational about this. Slowly he starts to speak, “if you build it… how will you power it? How will you fly it? How will you navigate? How will you figure out how to do all those things? I’m not getting into a spaceship built by someone who learnt physics from google.”

Michael turns to face him for the first time. “You’d come with me?”

Alex laughs at him, rising to turn and push Michael to the ground with the force of his kiss on his mouth. Michael returns the kiss enthusiastically but before they get carried away, Alex pulls back, raining kisses on his face between each of his words. “Not, if you don’t know the answers to all of those questions, I won’t.”

Michael pulls him back down on top of him and they get distracted for a moment. They kiss, leisurely for a long time. It’s not so hot, the sun is cooler on the mountain side and the trees provide some shade.

“I’ve been thinking maybe we should invite Isobel and Max to lunch before I go. I can get some meat and we can use the grill you have out front, what do you think?”

Michael can’t hide his surprise, swiftly followed by consideration. “I’ve never really done that.” He studies Alex for a moment, before adding. “You’ve been thinking a lot. I must not be fucking you enough if you have time for so many thoughts.” His hands start creeping up Alex’s thigh and towards the crotch of his trousers.

“I do really mean it, when I say I want you to have family. And… I didn’t mention it, but yesterday Max pulled me over.”

Michael pulls his hand back. “What?”

“Yeah, with the siren and everything,” Alex nods.

“Is he still alive?”

Alex grins, “You think I could take him?”

Michael bends over him to press their lips together. “I have no doubt, soldier boy.”

“Well, I chewed him out. I know I probably pushed it but I want you two to be able to be as close as you were when we were in high school. Whatever it is that pushed you apart, if you think of Max as your brother… he needs to start pulling his weight.”

Michael has frozen up beside him and turned away from him. He’s quiet.

“Alex… there’s something else I should tell you.”

The following silence lasts a while, as Alex waits for Michael to continue speaking.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“I really don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Because it will change everything. It will change how you look at me, what you think of me.”

Michael doesn’t look back at him.

“Do you really think there’s anything you could do that would change what I think of you?”

Michael’s silence is revealing. Shit! Alex, thinks a long time before he sits up to press his face to Michael’s shoulders. “Is there anything I can do about it? If I knew, would it change anything?”

Michael shakes his head, no. “It’s over. It already happened; nothing can change it.”

Alex slowly snakes his arms around Michael’s waist.

“Then I would tell you that it might be easier for you to share the burden of it with me. And that knowing how I’ll react might be better than the fear of guessing how I’ll react.” Alex strokes his hands over Michael’s stomach. “But telling me you have another secret, is enough for me. I don’t need to know what it is. You can tell me when you’re ready.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.” Michael barely whispers, but he lets his body fall into Alex’s embrace and they sit together, silently.

“Hey? Do you want to go to the Pony?” Michael releases himself from Alex’s grip and turns to ask him. “I haven’t been by in such a long time, Maria will probably think I’ve been abducted by aliens.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t really kept in touch.” He brushes his fingers through Michael’s hair, “It’s not very appealing to go out with you and have to avoid touching you and pretend we’re friends.”

“You’re worried about my family, what about yours? Don’t be a hypocrite, you can’t isolate yourself and become a military robot.”

“But what does that look like for you? Do we tell Maria about us? Do you live with the glares every time you pick someone up at the Pony? Do I live with the emails, with the play by play of your hook ups? I don’t know…”

“It’s your choice, Alex. You’re the one with something to hide.”

“I don’t want to hide you, don’t say that. Don’t think that.”

“Does that mean, when DADT gets repealed, you’ll tell people about me? It’s still the military… you think they’ll become tolerant from one day to the next?”

Alex blinks, mouth opening and closing to reply but he doesn’t know what to say.

“I don’t know.” He considers and says hesitantly, “I don’t want to have signed up for another 4 years and then sacrifice my chance for a promotion because I’m the gay Airman.”

“Maybe you can be the diversity hire.” Michael says sarcastically.

“What do you think I should do?” Alex asks him.

Michael considers it before sharing his reply, “play it by ear. No use wasting four years of enforced servitude, without a promotion. We won’t be living together; it won’t affect me. So, you can decide for you and I won’t take it personally.”

Alex nods in agreement and adds, “we’ll talk about it when the time comes. DADT is still here, so until it’s really truly gone…”

“The military clearly hasn’t cured you of talking about your feelings, Private.” Michael stands and reaches down to pull Alex up. “You’re still an emo song writer deep down inside.”

“You know I’m in the Air Force and I’ll be promoted to Sargent in six months.” Alex says as he folds the blanket.

“You don’t deny you’re not an emo song writer.” Michael grins at him, throwing an arm round his shoulders and dragging him towards the path. “Also, your military rank means nothing to me. It’s not like I’m planning to scream it in bed.”

“Really? Don’t want to call me, Sir?”

Michael overexaggerates a shudder, “I don’t care if you’re the General of the entire US Air Force. You wear insignia in bed and I’m kicking you out of it.”

They make their way back to the truck, wrapped around each other. Bickering the entire way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next evening, they decide to go to the Pony. Alex pushes Michael on to the bed as they are getting ready to leave. Strips him down and fucks himself open on Michael’s cock until they both come.

They drive in separately, Alex arriving first so he can say hello to Maria and update her on the details of his life. She isn’t there when he arrives but Mimi gives him a giant hug, making him feel self-conscious and she looks at him suspiciously, as if the guilt is written all over him.

He’ hadn’t showered after sex and he worries she can smell it all over him. If Alex can’t be with Michael in public he wants to be covered in his scent, his finger prints, his sweat, the feeling of his mouth against his skin. He’s sitting at the bar and the sting in his ass sends shivers up his spine every time he shifts his weight on the hard-wooden barstool, reminding him of everything he has, while he has to sit here in public pretending it doesn’t exist.

He orders a beer grinning joyfully as Mimi, laughing, refuses him service bemoaning the fact that he can’t be old enough to drink.

“I suppose if you’re old enough to lose life and limb for your country, you should be old enough to get drunk when you’re stateside.”

He sobers up as she places a cold draft in front of him and feels a chill up his spine. Her words, his memories of many of her words in the past, have a new significance. Now that he believes in aliens, it places other… things in a different light.

“Do you see anything?” He asks hesitantly.

“Why Alex Manes? Have you finally found someone to live for?” She bends over the bar and grabs at both his hands and stares at him intently. “Touching things that are not of this world… can be dangerous.” She lets go of his hands and turns away.

“What’s dangerous?” He asks and she glances back at him, smiling.

“Alex, love is always dangerous. Big love… well, big love is the greatest risk of all but also the greatest reward.” She smirks at him, “but shower next time. Before you come to my bar with that boys mark all over you.”

He doubts a shower will wash away Michael’s mark from his soul but Alex wants to melt into a puddle of shame in the ground. The idea that Mimi might know he had sex before coming here to her bar. He doesn’t even have the time to plan his escape before Maria is squealing and throwing herself at his back, arms around him.

Mimi lets Maria pull him away to sit together at a booth in the back of the Pony.

Maria barely gives him the time to process everything that she tells him as she catches him up on everything he’s missed from her life. The demands to hear personal stories from him, are a little problematic to manoeuvre. 

“Maria, I can’t talk publicly about my… things. I’m in the Air Force and I know you know there’s shit I can’t talk about.”

“We can talk code!”

“Code? My job is to talk code but I don’t think we speak the same language.” He jokes, “Anyway I don’t have that much to tell you.”

Maria’s eyes narrow and she studies him. “That is not true.” She shakes her head and smiles, “I just mean, last time we spoke about this you were right on the… the cusp of making these new discoveries about yourself, of sharing all these new experiences… and then… everything changed.” She shakes her head sadly.

Alex tries to lighten the tone, “Well, don’t worry. Even if you weren’t around to hear all the details, I still had all those experiences.”

“How do you even pick up…” she widens her eyes, obviously, “when you’re in the military?”

“You don’t!” Alex replies, “or at least I try and avoid it as much as I can. I don’t like that kind of risk. So, it stays an off-base activity.”

Maria glances away from him and then ducks down like she’s sharing a secret. “Don’t look now but someone from school just walked in and let me tell you…”

He interrupts her immediately. He doesn’t want to hear anything she might say about Michael whether it’s a joke, or dismissive, or cruel, or funny, or gossip of any form.

“You don’t need to tell me anything about Michael Guerin.” He hasn’t even turned around to check if it’s him, Maria saw. But it is.

“What? Why?” She looks startled.

“I know everything there is to know about Michael.” He says firmly and pointedly. Maria blinks at him, head tilted, synapses failing to connect. “Intimately,” he adds.

“But,” she struggles to find her words, “he fucks everything that moves _and_ Isobel Evans every other week. Why would? What? When? Why him?”

Alex makes a face. “Michael and Isobel definitely do not and have never had sex.” He clarifies immediately. Maria throws him a pitying look. “No! Seriously! It’s not my story, but those two are brother and sister.”

“He has feelings for her… are you sure he didn’t just say that to…”

“Really, Maria.” Alex interrupts and reaches over and takes her hand. “Just because you can sense things about people doesn’t mean you know everything about them. You need to be careful with that stuff, it can hurt people.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She doesn’t look convinced.

“To answer some of your questions, since high school…”

She interrupts this time, “since high school!?” She says it too loud and Alex feels his hackles start to rise as he senses people looking at them.

“Yes, my museum person.”

“Seriously? Why didn’t you tell me? Michael Guerin? I didn’t even know he was gay!” Her volume goes up at the end of her sentence.

“Maria!” he says sharply, “if you want to talk about this… you need to be more subtle about it.”

She lowers her voice and ducks down. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“I don’t have the luxury of forgetting. So please be more careful or I’ll need to leave so we can have this conversation in another place.” Alex breaths deeply, “he’s not gay, he’s bi.” He whispers.

“Are you sure he’s even bi? He’s always picking up women?” She looks upset and she’s glaring at Michael over his shoulder.

“I’m _really_ sure!” Alex answers annoyed, “What the fuck? Do you think he’s faking it? To seduce me and ruin my reputation in the eyes of the good people of Roswell? This isn’t a Jane Austen novel,” he hisses. “We fuck like animals and everyone is having a good time!” This time he’s the one who has to check his volume.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You just surprised me.” Maria takes a deep breath. “So, this is just a sex thing?” 

“Absolutely not!” He states, “this is… it’s everything. We’re it for each other.”

“You’ve actually talked about it? The Cowboy at that bar,” she points, “sat down with you and had a conversation about his plans for the future and his feelings? He literally picked up a girl in here less than a month ago?”

Alex had known this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. But he’s starting to regret having decided to open himself up to this situation.

“Maria, he’s my person.” He states softly, trying to tone down the argumentative element to their conversation. “We’re not talking about high school boyfriends here. You don’t need to show me his true colours or convince me he’s not good enough for me. This isn’t a discussion.”

“You’re in Roswell to see him?” She can’t hold back the hurt from her voice.

“Maria, we both stopped reaching out to each other after everything that happened.” He gestures between them. “But once I found out I was being deployed, Michael and I, we decided to start taking things seriously.”

“If you’re sure,” she agrees reluctantly.

“I don’t want to come to Roswell to see Michael, and avoid you. And I want us to write to each other, to stay in touch while I’m gone. So, I wanted you to know.” He corrects himself, “Michael wanted me to tell you because he says I can’t isolate myself.”

This surprises her, “I suppose I don’t really know Michael Guerin.”

But…” he licks his lips, “I need you not to keep track of Michael’s…” he searches for adequate phrasing, “sexual exploits, while I’m gone.”

“His cheating, you mean?”

“Maria… will I be cheating when I’m with someone on the other side of the Atlantic?” She looks doubtful, like she can’t imagine Alex fucking strangers. “I’m not the high schooler who found it hard to find a date to prom. I’ve gotten laid in the last 3 years. And I know the difference between sex that’s scratching an itch and sex that’s… everything else.”

“Well, what are the rules so I can tell you if…”

He interrupts again, shaking his head. “It’s between me and Michael. It’s not your job to keep him accountable, you can become his friend or just be his bartender, it’s your choice. But I really mean it when I say, I don’t care who Michael’s fucking when I’m not here.”

“Well, I think it’s a bad idea and that you’re gonna get hurt. But I suppose you are a grown up and you can make that mistake for yourself.”

“Thank you,” He answers sarcastically, but smiles.

“Really… Guerin?” She eyes him up, “You could do better, he smells like pond water.”

“Like the desert when it’s raining.” He disagrees with her.

She hesitates but eventually leans over, “what’s the sex like?”

He makes his voice dreamy and girly and answers her, grinning. “Epic! Mind blowing! No one can compare.”

“Why doesn’t he come over and sit here with us?” She’s watching him over Alex’s shoulder.

“You don’t understand how difficult it is not to touch someone you are so used to touching in the most intimate ways imaginable.” He shrugs, “We’re not used to restraining ourselves. This is actually a test, being in public together and I’m very worried we’ll fail. My Dad can’t know. The Air Force _cannot_ find out.”

“You think Michael won’t be able to help himself?”

“I think we’re both as bad as each other.” Alex is sure of it, actually.

“Well, you definitely can’t practice if he’s all the way over there.”

 _Hey soldier?_ – a voice speaks in his head and he turns, shocked, to look at Isobel who had obviously arrived while he had been speaking with Maria.

 _It worked! –_ she sounds delighted – _come pay attention to Michael, I think he’s feeling a little touch starved._

“Uhhh…” He glances back at Maria, then thinks – _Pool table –_ loudly, without any certainty if that will work.

“Let’s go play pool, you can hang out and get to know Michael’s sister. And I can try not to bend him over the pool table when he gets smug about winning.” He stands and watches out of the corner of his eye as Michael, gets up to grab a pool table.

“Alex!” She laughs, shocked at his language. “Jesus! Now I’m picturing it in my head and its… kinda hot.” She hustles towards him and whispers in his ear, “is that how you guys…?” She bobs her head from side to side in a way that doesn’t mean anything but that Alex still understands.

He pushes her away to glare at her, then reals her back to whisper in her ear, “Why the hell would I conform to some heteronormative rules about sex? We give it to each other in every imaginable way possible. It’s what makes it soooo good.”

Maria, breaks out into a breathless laugh and he can’t restrain his grin, his elation and giddy giddy joy of having this for himself.

“Alex! I wish you were an over-sharer!” She says furiously. Then shoves him towards the pool table and calls out that she’ll grab him a beer.

Alex strolls over to Michael. “Hey, Cowboy? I heard you’re good at pool. Play me for a $20?”

Michael eyes him up, giving him an obvious once over. “I don’t really need $20, what else can you play me for?”

Alex laughs and walks away to set up a game. As Alex positions himself to break, Michael crouches down beside him as if he’s paying close attention to Alex’s angles, but he reaches over to push his fingers up Alex’s pant leg searching for skin, stroking his ankle, over the edge of his sock.

“Well, if you spoke to me like Isobel just did, we could negotiate more privately.” Alex tells him softly, “I suppose you’ll have to practice so that you can be prepared for next time. You’ll just have to use me for my money this time.”

Michael stands, arms crossed as if to stop himself from reaching out to touch him again. “You’re already expecting to lose? I wasn’t expecting such a defeated attitude from a soldier, Soldier?”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t trust you to follow the rules.”

“Rules are for the weak!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We’re not doing that again,” Michael says breathlessly.

They barely make it back to the Airstream before Michael is pushing him through the door straight over his desk. Alex tugging his own pants down as Michael opens his trousers, gets a condom on and presses into him slowly. He’s still wet and used up from a few hours ago and Michael is careful about pushing into him slowly. Alex relishes the burn, groaning.

“I can’t not touch you in public.” Michael is pressed all the way inside him and while he waits for Alex to adjust, he starts to tear off their shirts so they can crowd against each other, skin to skin.

“Don’t come on my papers.” Michael bends him over slightly and Alex places his hands on his desk and consequently, all over his papers, to brace himself.

“Why are you fucking me over your desk, then?”

“I needed to get inside of you. Thought about it every time you bent over and lined up a shot.” He starts to move, hips pumping him back and forth insistently and Alex thrilling at their need for one another, moaning as Michael’s purposeful thrusts against his prostate.

But he can’t help but huff out breathlessly between thrusts, “Can I have my $20 dollars back then?”

Michael laughs and his thrusts stutter to a stop. “What? Are you offering your ass up in trade?” He reaches down with a hand, cupping Alex’s balls then continuing to press against his taint rhythmically until Alex is whimpering and trying to shove himself back on to his cock. Michael keeps drifting further back and very purposefully rubs his fingers over the muscles of Alex’s asshole, surrounding his cock.

“Fuck, Michael!” He shivers, helplessly. He lifts his right leg out of his pant leg and lifts it up, on to the top of the desk. He needs to open himself up further, they’ll get a better angle, he’ll feel Michael deeper inside him.

“I think you’re supposed to negotiate before you give up the goods, darling!” Michael presses kisses up the side of his face. “You’re so easy for me, Alex. Sweet and open and…”

Alex shut’s him up, turning his head back and pressing his mouth to Michael’s. They kiss urgently and slowly Michael starts moving inside him and fucking him again, distracted.

Alex gasps at the change of pace, “Oh fuck! There, I need you right there. Michael! Fuck Michael!” Michael is pounding into him and Alex is rushing furiously towards orgasm, feels it being ripped out of him.

Michael follows him down crying out and biting down on Alex’s shoulders as he comes inside Alex.

Alex tries to catch his breath. His knees feel useless all he needs is to collapse and lie down. But that would mean moving and moving means; “I wish you could always be inside of me.” Alex whispers into the air between them, eyes clenched shut as Michael pulls out of him.

Michael tugs him round, presses a kiss to his mouth but pulls back immediately. “Don’t say shit like that when you’re leaving me in less than three days.” He guides Alex gently towards the bed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: that even though I have a few thousand words of a sequel written, I still haven't decided how I will be handling canon plot points like... Caulfield (which was so bizarre to me) so I haven't made the choice to go ahead with it yet.   
> So please read this as a stand alone, for the moment.

Alex wakes Michael up with kisses and strokes but only starts getting serious about it once Michael is awake and turned on enough to grab his hand with his power, dragging it between his legs and not letting Alex pull it away until he verbally promises to finger him open. Alex laughs through it and Michael is grumpy and sleepy and buries his head under his pillow, complaining about military time.

Alex pours lube on to his fingers, presses kisses against his shoulder blades and slowly starts opening him up. He takes his time, too long it seems, because eventually Michael gives up on shoving his ass down on Alex’s fingers and throws the pillow to the ground. He pushes Alex back, grabs a floating condom from the air, rolls it down Alex’s dick before climbing aboard and lowers himself slowly, groaning down Alex’s dick.

Alex grabs his hips and admires the expanse of Michael’s naked skin as he moves above him. Hips rolling and twisting down on him as Michael hunts out the angles that bring him pleasure. Eventually Michael wakes himself up enough to recognise Alex’s existence as more than a nice body to fuck himself on and his eyes flash open, glittering as he leans forward to torture Alex’s tits with his fingers.

Alex cries out from a particularly vicious twist and feels his body leap closer towards orgasm and pulls Michael’s hands away from his chest.

“Fuck! I don’t know how I can still be this desperate for you.”

Michael smirks down at him and brings Alex’s hand to his own dick, setting the rhythm to show Alex how he wants to be jerked off. “We have to make up for lost time.”

“No amount of fucking now, will make up for my being so far away.”

“Yeah, well this is the best I can do.” Michael frowns and tightens his muscles purposefully driving Alex to the limits of distraction. But he keeps his focus and manages to hold himself back until Michael is coming into his fist. But it’s a near thing and it doesn’t take much effort on Michael’s part for Alex to follow him.

Michael’s hips roll to a slow stop, as he catches his breath, grinning.

“I love it when you take what you want from me.” Alex huffs, breathlessly and reaches towards him to stroke over Michael’s skin. He’s thrilled with the high of an excellent orgasm with this beautiful man.

But Michael expression melts off his face, his body stills in his lap and suddenly he’s squirming and twisting out of Alex’s touch. Kneeling up over his hips, framing his hand on Alex’s pubic bone to hold the condom down on Alex’s dick as he pulls himself off with a groaned, aching ‘ _fuck’._

He drops his ass down on the side of the mattress with a hiss, facing away from Alex. He stands, tense, a towel flies into his hands and he wipes the come off his stomach and chest and then cleans the lube out from between his legs and lobs the towel fiercely onto Alex’s stomach.

Alex is partially propped up on his elbows, watching him. “What did I say?” He’s confused.

“I won’t always be able to take what I want from you.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it. I just realised I have stuff to do for Sanders, today.” He grabs his jeans off the floor and tugs them on and flies a new t-shirt out of somewhere and pulls it on over his head.

Alex sits up watching him and grabs his wrist as Michael is tucking himself into his jeans.

“Hey? Are you ok? You were kind of rough with yourself? Did I do something wrong?”

“I’m fine.” Michael tugs himself free gently to pull his zipper up and floats his boots over. He sits on the edge of the bed to pull socks and his boots over his feet.

Alex curls his fingers round Michael’s biceps. “I can go buy meat at the supermarket while you’re at work?”

“Sure!”

“Michael?” Alex says hesitantly as Michael stands and strides over to the door of the Airstream. He barely pauses at the entrance to glance over at Alex who’s sitting up naked in his bed.

“I’ll see you later.” He disappears out the door and Alex stays, frozen where he is for a long moment before collapsing back against the mattress, trying to understand what had just happened.

He doesn’t have to wait long to figure it out. After having managed to get himself out of bed and showered he stands in the trailer for several minutes, trying to choose between chasing after Michael or going to the grocery story. But he decides, in the end, to give Michael his space. Neither are used to cohabitating in such an intense and intimate way with another person.

They had agreed to hold the barbecue today, two days before Alex leaves. It would have been the day before, but Alex needed at least 48 hours alone with Michael in bed before leaving him. So, he parks his rental truck in the endless lot in front of the supermarket and goes in to buy meat and vegetables for the evening grill up. Max had told Michael he would bring a pasta or potato salad and Isobel was in charge of drinks. He’s chosen some onions, chilies, zucchinis and peppers and is hovering in front of the beef in the fridge when suddenly he’s no longer in the supermarket.

Since being in Roswell with Michael this is the first time, they’ve needed each other, this way. Probably because they’ve been mostly together.

But now here he is standing in an empty space at Sanders looking around. He doesn’t see Michael immediately and for a moment he assumes he’ll find Michael facing down another rattle snake. But when he spots him, Michael is burrowed down into a corner, almost entirely concealed by towering piles of junk, that keep him hidden away. His hand is pressed to his chest as if he’s trying to regulate his breathing and he’s panting heavily.

“Are you okay? Was it a snake?” Alex walks over to him. But Michael doesn’t look at him and that, more than anything else, lets Alex know everything is not okay.

Michael’s breathing is not slowing down. Alex crouches down and reaches out to him and Michael bats his hand away so it doesn’t touch him. Alex notices that Michael’s hands are shaking. Everything in the yard is starting to shake. Haphazardly piled junk, heaped against more chaotic stacks of crap, starting to spill over, vibrating, falling as everything trembles apart.

Alex looks around at the moving pieces then blinks back at Michael. He’s having a panic attack.

Alex doesn’t know what to do. He can’t hold him, he’s at the supermarket and as long as Michael is feeling this way, he can’t drive over to hold him in person. He kneels down beside him anyway and moves his hand up and down his back, murmuring gently.

But Michael shrugs him off.

“I don’t know what to do, Michael.” He whispers urgently. “I don’t know how to help you.”

“Please leave, please leave,” Michael places his hands over his eyes as if he can block Alex’s existence if he stops looking at him. He’s breathing purposely, trying to regulate his lungs and get his panic under control.

“I don’t know how. I don’t want to leave you here.”

Everything stops. Then Michael is on his feet yelling at him.

“You _are_ leaving me. _You are leaving me_!” The panic that had abated somewhat is back full force.

Alex stumbles back on to his feet shocked. Suddenly small things around the yard lift up and rush towards them and Alex almost ducks for cover when he realises the debris is spinning round them both.

“Michael!” He doesn’t know how to respond, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I don’t want to.”

Michael doesn’t stop, “I’m going to sleep alone for the next four years. I will be _without you_ for four more years. I don’t want you to go.”

Alex tries to keep calm but he can feel the need to respond to Michael’s fury and sadness with the same. He tries not to let his own emotions get to him. “You won’t be without me.” He tries to hide his agitation, “You won’t! Whenever you have doubts, or fears, or feel angry, I’ll be with you.”

Alex is shocked by the racket of everything crashing down to the earth as Michael clenches his fists and stalks towards him. Alex can’t help but stumble back.

“Will you? Because you’re about to go back to war and war is going to eat you up, chew you and spit you out a fucked up mess of a human being and you’ll flinch away from me when I touch you and you’ll sleep badly and you’ll get hurt and you might die and you will never be mine because I will have to keep giving you back to them, until there’s nothing left of you.”

They are both frozen.

Michael breaks the stillness gasping, “and I’ll have to watch.” He collapses to his knees breathing heavily and Alex falls to his knees beside him. He can’t stop tears from falling, his hands rising to Michael’s shoulders.

“Michael? Look at me, please look at me?”

“What if you die?” Michael sobs out. “What if you die in front of me and I can’t do anything? How can I love you if you’re going to leave me?” He looks dazed, confused by his question.

“Please calm down so I can come to you. Please? I’m only 15 minutes away.”

“Today you’re 15 minutes away. But next week? Next year?” Michael’s powers are calming down and the chaos around them is slowly returning to normal.

“Michael, please?” Alex doesn’t even know what he’s asking for. But after the panic, then the anger, Michael’s sadness seems to numb him. The furious energy that built up around them so intensely, falling apart leaving Michael shocked and overwhelmed and disoriented, surrounded by debris.

Alex blinks into awareness into the blinding white light of the supermarket and movement out of the corner of his eye. “Sir? Are you okay?”

Alex dodges out of range of the hand that is touching him, crashing hard into the fridge he was standing besides, to get away. “Don’t touch me!”

The person pulls back immediately, Alex doesn’t even glance their way as he tries to escape from the proximity of the human presence around him.

“I’m sorry, dude! You were crying. Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry. I’m a soldier. Don’t touch me.” He tries to steady his breathing. The person doesn’t leave. “I need to leave. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

He leaves. Shopping cart abandoned and he rushes out dodging obstacles in his path as he tries to get to his car.

Before he gets inside to drive to Michael. He stops and tries to calm himself, deep breaths to slow his heartrate and regulate his breathing. He doesn’t want to have an accident, but he needs to get to Michael’s side.

The car has barely stopped at Sander’s before Alex is diving out of it, calling Michael’s name, silence his only response. He’s about to run deeper into the junkyard, when he’s lucky enough to glance at Michael’s truck as he runs past it. He stops when he sees Michael in the front seat, head in his arms, arms on the steering wheel, as if he had tried to run off before Alex got to him.

He changes direction and pulls the door open and throws his arms around him. Michael barely moves in reaction to his presence. But Alex feels heartbroken, in response to Michael’s fear and uncertainty for the part of Alex’s life that he also can’t control. He can’t hold his tears back and he says sorry repeatedly, until the broken record must bring Michael back and he responds to him eventually. Slowly, Michael twists out from under Alex and reaches to hug him back.

“Don’t cry. I don’t want you to cry.” Finally, they get their arms around each other in a more comfortable way. Michael swinging round so his legs are hanging out of the side of the truck with Alex between his legs, arms circled round his neck and holds him desperately.

“I’m sorry I’m going to hurt you.” Alex murmurs, voice hitching, into his ear as Michael inhales jaggedly. “That it hurts now.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. It’s not.” Alex pulls back, eyes flickering over Michael’s tear flushed face. “Everything you said is true, it’s all true.”

Michael closes his eyes against that truth. “This is my fault,” his voice breaks. “I did this to us and it’s stupid, I was stupid.”

“This isn’t your fault, Michael. This is the most important thing in my life.”

“Our lives are tangled now, forever my soul scrambled up with yours! And since you’ve been here you talk and talk and you want me to count on you! But you’re a soldier. I can’t count on you.”

“Michael… we are” Michael turns his red eyes towards him, “We are! _We just are_! We are entangled, we are soul bound, our futures are already intertwined. We don’t know how to undo that. I don’t want to undo that.”

Michael shakes his head in denial.

“I’m sorry if I talk too much. I just wanted… I know I’m a mess, that my job is trauma waiting to happen to you. I want you to have support. I want people to love you.” He adds helpless, voice broken, “I want to love you.”

“I don’t know what love is.” Michael replies, quieter, “all I know is that if you died, every part of me would hurt. Everything I am would hurt. Is that what love is, Alex? Is that what love will always be like, for me?”

“I don’t know how I can make this better.”

“You can’t!” Michael’s voice wavers but he takes a deep breath and continues. “There’s nothing you can say to make it better. Only things you do, could make this okay, but even those are impossible when your life is ruled by them. If it was people, or geographic, or a job we could fix this. But your fucking overlord is the US military.”

The weight of this undeniable reality can’t be argued. Alex lets his head fall against Michael’s shoulder and neither of them let go of the other.

“I’m sorry,” Alex breaths into the space between them.

Michael moves his hand to the back of Alex’s neck, stroking through the short hairs of Alex’s military haircut. They breathe each other in until Alex pulls back, rubbing he side of his face against the stubble of Michael’s cheek.

Alex whispers to him. “You know what you are to me. Something in this galaxy has united us against all the odds, we are connected across continents and oceans.” Alex makes certain Michael meets his gaze and accepts his words. “You are everything, Michael. This is everything. Now that we have it, I never want to let it go. You are essential to me.”

Michael seals Alex’s declaration with a kiss. Their lips meeting and pressing together desperately, their hands frantic for each other.

Michael pulls back eventually to murmur into his ear. Alex closes his eyes letting the sound of Michael’s voice wash over him. “You will be the string of the kite that ties me to this earth but lets me fly. I will be the roots in the ground that keep you anchored to me and helps you grow. Alex,” he presses his lips to Alex’s lips. “Alex, that’s what we are for each other. But don’t you dare die! Do you understand me Alex? You can’t fucking die on me.”

Alex opens his eyes and makes a promise he can’t keep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the end Alex had stayed to watch Michael work. He’d curled up in an old chair and watched as Michael floated tools around himself, grabbing them out of the air as he needed them. The busy work seemed to ease Michael’s mood and distract him from the disappointment they were faced with, Alex’s unavoidable departure. In the moments between cars, or tasks or just whenever the mood struck, Michael would wander over to where Alex was seated and run his lips over Alex’s cheek bones, or his fingers over the curve of Alex’s ears, press his lips against Alex’s forehead, stroke his neck. Alex would bend into every touch, like a sunflower following the sun. Every moment of thoughtless physical affection filled him with warmth.

After work they both head towards the supermarket in their trucks. They’d decided to go ahead with the barbecue anyway, delay lunch and have an evening grill up. The sun won’t be as high in the sky, so the heat will be more tolerable and the sunset will be spectacular.

Max arrives first, tentatively placing a large bowl of pasta salad, filled with a variety of vegetables and with more than enough for left overs, down on the table. Michael had managed to scrounge up the table and mismatched benches, from the scrap yard. As Isobel pulled in, he’d gone over to look at Michael, building the fire on the grill and complimented his efforts and thanked him for inviting him for dinner.

Michael is standing over the grill. Max is holding a beer but Alex is having some alcoholic fruity, lemonade that Isobel brought with her. It’s so good and refreshing that he managed to get Michael to give it a taste and he’s been unsubtly stealing sips from Alex’s glass ever since. Alex gives him many opportunities to steal from his glass, he can’t help himself. He walks up behind him and presses a kiss to his neck. Michael waving the tongs about as he tells Max and Isobel a story. Alex’s arm circles round his back sliding a hand into Michael back pocket, as Alex critiques his grilling and Michael teases him back for being unenlightened, laughing until Alex can’t help but brush his hair from his face and press his lips to Michael’s to shut him up.

Michael pushes Alex away, telling him to leave him alone so he could concentrate on the meat and vegetables on the grill. They’ve sat down at the table and they’re having fun, only some tension creeping up between him and Max, which leaves Alex feeling hopeful. They’re talking about how they might be able to practice their powers, or even start branching out. Alex, trying to be especially encouraging with Max’s healing gift because from a strategic point of view, it is the power with the most practical application in their mundane lives. Without even considering that fact that the three of them refuse all kinds of outside medical attention.

“Could you heal Michael’s hand?”

It’s the first time that Max leans towards him, overcoming his reserve to commiserate with Alex. “I tried when it first happened, but he wouldn’t let me.”

Alex turns to look at Michael, shocked. “What? Michael, why?”

Michael shrugs, reluctant to talk about it and concentrates on flipping the steaks on the grill.

“It’s been such a long time. I doubt he’d notice it.” Alex hedges.

Isobel frowns, “Who’d notice it?”

Michael drops the grilling tongs and moves out from behind the grill, crossing the four steps separating them to casually reach over and clutch at Alex’s shoulder. “No one, everyone.” He states. “I can’t suddenly appear healed from one day to the next. It would raise suspicion. That kind of operation would be expensive, no one would believe I could afford it and I would need recovery time… it’s not worth it.”

Alex flickers between studying Isobel and Max, both of whom are frowning. But it’s obvious Michael doesn’t want them to know. “Well, maybe it would be a good opportunity to find out if Max can partially heal an injury? Or even fix such an old wound at all?” He pulls the attention in a different direction. “It’s easy to wear a cast for a while if you need to.”

“But it would be weird not to even have a scar.” Michael counters.

“Yeah, but we could try it? I could try and leave the scar.” Max interjects with some excitement. “I didn’t think you’d let me, Michael. But if you want to, we can work at it.”

“It doesn’t have to be now. We can practice on ourselves. if I get two papercuts, you could try and heal just one.” Isobel adds. “Or if one of us burns ourselves cooking, heal it but leave the top layer of skin damage.”

“If I get shot, I could try and heal it but leave the scar.” Max thinks out loud.

“How the fuck are you _planning_ to get shot?” Michael is moving back to the grill but takes the time between strides to glare at Max.

Alex interrupts before a discussion can break out. “Do you think practising could make your gifts stronger?”

Michael raises an eyebrow at him, crosses his arms over his chest and Alex watches as the plates on their makeshift table, float up and towards the grill. He places the four steaks on each plate, adds veggies on the side and floats them back, setting each one down on the table gently.

“Let’s eat! Before Michael keeps showing off to Alex and decides to serve the pasta salad with his telekinesis and we have macaroni dancing on to our plates. Everything smells so good,” Isobel declares, “which is a relief. I postponed a date with a lawyer to be here.”

“A date?” Michael teases

“Postponed?” Alex adds.

“Yep! I’ve decided to explore my options. I want an epic alien connection like Alex and Michael. So, I won’t tolerate any more mediocre dates.”

Michael smirks over at Alex, as he sits down. “Alex, hasn’t taken me on _any_ dates.”

“We went to Sierra Blanca!” Alex declares unsure.

“If you think taking me hiking is a date, you are sorely mistaken!” Michael smacks a kiss on his cheek before he takes a seat on the bench beside Alex.

“What’s a date? Define a date?” He says defensively, and adds, “you haven’t taken me on any dates either.” Alex stabs a slice of zucchini viciously.

“Well, I’m dating an Air Force Sargent, we need to be discreet.”

Alex pauses midmovement and turns to look at him, Michael studiously avoiding him. “I’m not a Sargent yet.”

“Well, I can imagine that Alex looks soooo good in his uniform. I’m jealous.” Isobel inputs. “He’ll have to introduce me to his soldier friends.” She takes a bite, grinning.

Max sets the knife and fork he’d just picked up, down again, wide eyed. “Uhhh are you sure that would be a good idea?”

Alex nods his head and swallows his first bite of food before speaking, “I’m with Max on this one. Let’s try to keep the military as far away from you guys as possible.”

Michael reaches across him for some pasta salad and ladles a big spoonful on to his plate. “Yep, one military man is _more_ than enough. Alex knows, I think it’s already too much.”

Alex puts down his utensils and places his hand on Michael’s thigh.

“Let’s be honest and say you were both lucky I reeled in Alex Mane when we were teenagers, before he was a soldier. I caught him in my thrall before he found out about aliens and I’ll never let him go.”

“Really, is that what happened?” Alex can’t help but grin at him, squeeze his thigh and then restraining himself from leaning over to kiss him.

“Yep!”

“I’m in your thrall, am I?”

Michael turns to him and arches an eyebrow, “aren’t you?”

Alex doesn’t restrain himself. He presses a kiss to Michael’s smirking lips. “You are such a dick!”

“You can’t keep all the men in uniform to yourself, Michael.” Isobel interrupts their moment, reminding them of their existence.

“I would prefer it if my man were not in uniform.” Michael says very casually and Alex can’t decide whether to let his heart sink because he can’t take off the uniform… or to let his heart sing because Michael said ‘ _my man’._

Alex clears his throat and picks his fork up to continue eating. “Isobel, there are uniforms in the Sheriff’s office,” he points out.

Max who was about to take a bite looks up, startled. “What? No!”

Everyone can’t help but laugh at him, Max joining in and teasing Isobel with the married or older gentlemen that wear uniforms in his office.

“Actually, I had an idea to propose to you Max.” Alex mentions once they are finishing off their meal.

Max looks at Alex interested.

“This is an idea for you to explore, but obviously only if you want to.” Alex clarifies, “But I was wondering what you would think about looking into the people at the Sheriff’s department that may have handled your case when they found you three in the desert? Have you looked in to it before?”

“I’ve thought about it.” Max replies, “but decided against it. I didn’t think it would be worth the risk. It’s been over 15 years. If someone knew something, I would think they would have acted before now. Not sure how that information would benefit us?”

“It wouldn’t really,” Alex agrees, “But I suppose I would just feel more comfortable knowing who might be aware of your origin story.” Alex and Michael share a smile. “So, we can keep an eye on them or at least we can double check if they’ve kept tabs on you three over the years.”

“Do you think they would?” Isobel interjects.

“It’s a strange story and it involves kids. I can imagine someone making sure they kept track of you to make sure you had good lives. But cute kids become adults and suddenly that person could start asking questions… anything could happen really. I just wanted to ask you guys what you thought about it?”

“I think cops are naturally curious and suspicious people,” Max adds. “It’s why I’m so careful about not using my powers. Maybe it’s made me overly cautious with you two as well.”

“I think being surrounded by cops would give any alien a persecution complex.” Michael says and Max nods in agreement.

“You can check if anyone has accessed a file over the past 15 years. Or I could write you an algorithm to let you know if anyone uses any specific search queries, or opens the file in the future,” Alex suggests.

“You could do that?” Max seems to be considering the option. “I would be less likely to be caught if I didn’t have to access the files without permission regularly. But I doubt it’s really necessary. Why do you think…?” he trails off.

“Is Valenti still Sheriff?” Alex asks and Max nods in response.

“Maybe I’m just paranoid but… if Valenti was around when you were found, he would have mentioned it to my Dad. They were friends when we were all younger. Even though I don’t think my Dad is one for conspiracy theories… he also never forgets strange things. He’s Air Force and I know he’s never really been posted anywhere long term, that isn’t Roswell. I think my grandfather was in Roswell after the war… I remember someone mentioning he might have been here during the ‘balloon crash’. I just…”

Alex turns to Michael and meets his gaze, with what he hopes Michael can interpret as a request to share more information. He’s worried that his father might have tried to look into Michael after catching them together. If Michael understands his expression, his response is a very obvious shake of his head.

Alex focuses back on Max, “I think it might be a good idea to check who might know about your past. Just so that you can stay on top of it, cover some bases. Obviously, since it has to do with your job and career it’s also your decision what risks you are willing to take. But I want you to know you can ask me for help, if you want it.”

Max nods and Isobel lets the moment breathe easily between them all before changing the subject. “Has Michael taken you to see our pods?”

“Pods?” He turns to Michael.

“No, I didn’t really tell him about them,” Michael admits.

“Do you two only have time for sex?”

“Yes, Isobel,” Michael grabs Alex’s hand and tugs him sideways with both his hands and powers until Alex has no choice but to accept sliding down the bench. Michael continues tugging until Alex ends up, surprised, to find himself on Michael’s lap. “All we do is have sex. We have to make up for lost time.”

“Sometimes we talk about our feelings.” Alex interjects hoping Isobel will be proud of their progress.

Alex feels awkward on Michael’s lap, too big, too heavy, too boney and uncomfortable. He’s never been a very tactile person, never had the guts to let his touch linger on what he wanted in public. But he’s trying to become comfortable with the idea of sharing affection with Michael in front of people. If he was expecting Michael and Max and Isobel to share their deepest secrets and histories with him, he needed to become comfortable sharing his secrets and fears with them too.

He forces his body to relax into Michael’s but does wiggle himself off his lap, gesturing for Michael to swing a leg over and then he lets himself be pulled to sit between his legs and lean against Michael. Michael’s arms circle his hips and Alex breaths in deeply.

“Comfy?” Isobel mocks them.

“Very!” Alex boasts in return. “What are the pods? Are they safe? Could anyone find them? What are they for?”

“Not a spaceship. Michael won’t be leaving you behind on earth any time soon.” Isobel teases.

“Speak for yourself, Isobel. I’ve already told Michael I’d fly away with him as long as he has a few degrees in…” Alex pauses to think and then concludes with, “the stuff you need to fly spaceships with.”

Michael snorts in his ear. “and you call yourself an Airman?”

Max clears his throat and distracts Alex from replying.

“We think the pods were vessels for stasis during space travel…”

Alex listens attentively as Max shares everything they know about their origins. Held within Michael’s embrace, as Isobel and Michael interrupt and interject and tease Max every time they feel he’s leaving something out. It feels like the beginnings of family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He left Roswell just over five weeks ago. He’s been settling in to Ramstein and he likes it. He’s explored a bit of the country outside of the base but this weekend is the first time he’s taken the time to plan a trip and make the journey to Berlin, by himself.

He’s rented a cheap but nice Airbnb in the city. He’d walk around all day, fascinated by everything. The profound sense of history, the museums and galleries, the rivers and restaurants, the narrow colourful buildings packed closely together, the cobbled streets, markets, food from all over the world. The marriage of a historical and modern city sitting comfortably together, side by side

It felt amazing to no longer be in a small town like Roswell. To be able to explore a big city with no American military presence to look over his shoulder. He felt he could breathe.

And tonight! Tonight, he is going to take off his dog tags, do something to his slightly grown out, but still unattractive military crew cut and put on something sexy. Then he’s going to take the short walk to the biggest and best LGBT club in the city. He is going to drink, he is going to dance and he is going to touch other men and he is going to have the best time.

And that is what he does. He’s in the middle of the crowd, exhilarated and soaring with the freedom of dancing with people like him. He gets lost in the music, rhythmic pulsing in his ears in his bones singing in his veins, dancing with everyone and no one, occasionally distracting himself with one particular person, but never for long.

Suddenly he feels the ghost of arms around him.

Alex swings round and Michael is here with him. He stills, all his movement stopping and his gaze settling on Michael and taking him in. He’s probably interrupted an afternoon at the junkyard, he’s dirty and sweaty and his t-shirt is stained and full of holes, he has a streak of grease down the side of his face and Alex thinks he is prettier than all the dolled up, glittery, well dressed queer men that surround him.

His time with Michael in New Mexico had some unforeseen consequences. The sense of belonging, the potential for family, the love and security… all this meant Alex arrived in Germany feeling strong and confident and invincible. Alex had less anxiety and fewer negative, stressful moments that would trigger Michael’s appearance. Alex wouldn’t want to presume, but the same might be said for Michael. He hadn’t had any nightmares lately and no fights since Alex left.

This all meant that they hadn’t seen each other in five weeks. Alex missed him.

But his presence here in the club, while Alex’s heart soared with an elated sense of liberty and exhilarated joy proved that they wouldn’t only be sharing the negative and fearful and anxiety ridden moments in their lives but also the instances of thrilling excitement and ecstatic resonating happiness.

They don’t speak. It is unlikely that they would hear each other over the thumping music and people enthusiastically yelling their joy. But surrounded by so much elated chaos, no one will notice if Alex is pressed up to a body that isn’t there, held by arms he feels but they can’t see, groped and his face touched by invisible hands and fingers that revere him. He is profoundly himself, with Michael at his side and across the ocean, in his heart and in his soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it... and without the added shit-ton of anxiety... but I'm also happy to have returned to fandom and written and finished something after such a long time.


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